


The Promise Ring

by OriginalCeenote



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Body Worship, Bucky Barnes is a little shit, Fake Relationship, Fake marriage proposal, Hard of Hearing Clint Barton, M/M, Nurse Sam, Pining, SWBB, Sam Wilson Birthday Bang 2019, Samtember, Skinny Steve is the Cutest Steve, Slow Burn, Speed Dating, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Tall Clint, Target Wedding Registry, Unit Secretary Bucky, WinterFalcon - Freeform, hospital au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-02 18:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20812325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalCeenote/pseuds/OriginalCeenote
Summary: “It’s my turn with the scanning gun. Give it here.” Sam made grabby hands for it, but Bucky snatched it back with a chiding look.“Only if I get to register for the Snuggie.”Sam’s expression flattened. “Barnes. No.”





	The Promise Ring

**Author's Note:**

> “We’re fake-dating and I’m supposed to publicly break up with you but you’ve been irritating me lately so instead of dumping you, I publicly proposed to mess up your plan and now we’re getting married, fuck.” Taken from the Tumblr prompt.
> 
> This is my story entry for the Sam Wilson Birthday Bang. Waltermittie on Tumblr was my fantastic art collaborator.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183133495@N02/48817849556/in/dateposted-public/)

The invitation fell out of the pile of old mail as Bucky began to sort through it to find the Best Buy bill, conspicuous in its small, mint green envelope amidst the white rectangular ones with cellophane windows. Bucky picked it up off the floor and squinted down at the return address.

“Fuck,” he muttered. _C. Danvers + J. Drew._ The engagement party. He’d forgotten it was this month. This _weekend._

A second glance told him it was addressed to Bucky and Brock _both_. He flipped it over and noticed the envelope was already slit open across the top and slightly creased, like someone read the card and crammed it back inside. Bucky checked the postmark and noticed it was delivered two weeks ago. Right before Brock moved out.

“Lovely.” Bucky tugged the small card out and read aloud from it, in no mood to appreciate Jess’s girlish, curling script on the heavy cardstock. “Help us pretend to be respectable after two years of being shacked up. We’d love it if you both could come.”

How was this Bucky’s life? He chucked the tiny card back onto the counter and went back to sorting the bill and junk mail. His Black and Decker coffee pot hissed and bubbled from the other side of the kitchen, emitting the tempting aroma of Starbucks Veranda Blend blonde roast. Bucky needed to be fully caffeinated if he was going to get through this night. The dirty dishes stared at him accusingly from the sink; Bucky decided to wash them so he didn’t have to come home to the mess in the morning and wonder why he had no clean bowls to eat cereal out of. 

The cabinets weren’t as full anymore once Brock packed up his dishes. The apartment still seemed to hold a bit of his essence despite the fact that his possessions were gone. Bucky was only too happy to wash the scent of Brock from his bed sheets the night that he left, but he hadn’t quite forwarded his mail yet; that tangible reminder of him still gave Bucky a bittersweet pang. Letting him go was hard, but… yeah. No. It had to be done. The bills and junk mail with his name still trickled into Bucky’s box, tempting him with the excuse to call or text him, even though his therapist reminded him it would only prolong his healing from the breakup. After several false starts - Brock “accidentally” got lost on his way to the spare bedroom and ended up back in their once-shared king-size bed a few times before he finally paid the security deposit on his own apartment - they were finally done. There was still a faint tan line around Bucky’s ring finger; he listed the promise ring on eBay and sold it to the first bidder.

Bucky lied to himself that the ring had never suited him, anyway. Even though the tiny blue topaz matched his eyes.

*

Bucky stowed his things in his locker and lingered by the work coffee pot, brewing a fresh pot before the beginning of shift change. Kitty, the adorable day shift CNA from Pedes, smiled brightly and made an appreciative noise.

“Mmmmmm. That smells _so_ good.”

“Have some, if you want, Kitten.”

“Nah. I’m good. I’m heading home to scarf down some dinner and climb straight into bed.”

“Nice.” Bucky missed how it felt to sleep at night, but he still loved earning the NOC shift differential and working with that crew of staff. There was just “a different energy” at that time of day, something Nick, his charge nurse, was fond of mentioning whenever anyone asked him how he’d managed to endure twenty years of sleeplessness and a crushingly empty social life. Bucky wasn’t ready to trade in the rapport with those friends and the constant supply of snark yet. “Doing anything with Piotr this weekend?”

“Nope. Gotta study for my NCLEX.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’ll be so glad when this is over. Then, I can actually crawl out of my cave. How about you? Doing anything fun?”

“Not… yet.” Bucky shrugged, not sure if he wanted to vent about Brock, or the lack of a date for Carol and Jessica’s engagement party, or his newly (unwelcome) single status. It was hard. It was just so frickin’ _hard_. Bucky didn’t want to be That Guy Who Couldn’t Talk About Anything Else. Not again. At least, not at the moment. 

Kitty, spritely and petite herself, lightly bumped her shoulder against Bucky’s. “You’re looking skinny! You cutting carbs?”

“Nah. Just been in the gym a lot.” _As a distraction,_ he didn’t mention. Spending his waking, non-working hours at the gym meant he didn’t have to come home to an empty apartment and stare at those four walls. Bucky pretty much lived in the high intensity interval training classes and was a regular at the pool. It wasn’t like he was a slouch before, but Bucky was starting to like the guy he saw in the mirror, lately. That guy looked like he never skipped leg day.

“Well, it shows! Good on you, Buckster. Hey, I’m gonna jet.”

“Did you drop off your phone?”

“Ooh. Shit. Here.” Kitty dug into her scrub pants pocket and grabbed the iPhone in its bulky, black Otterbox case with clip and shoved it at him. “I don’t wanna take this thing home again.”

“Please, don’t,” he agreed.

“Byeeeeee,” Kitty sang as she grabbed her purse and hustled out. Bucky sighed and made his way to the time clock with his commuter cup, one of the more ridiculous gifts that Carol gave him that read, “Tattoos, Thick Thighs and Pretty Eyes.” He punched in and waved his goodbyes to the rest of the outgoing CNAs before he came to the nurse’s station. The counter was piled with flower arrangements that molted dried petals beside the paper-clipped daily assignments.

“What can I help you with today?” Bucky asked Steve, his day shift counterpart and partner in crime. Steve huffed, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Make that call light phone stop ringing. Or you can do the whiteboard. It’s been the day from hell.”

“Got it.” Bucky took the dry erase marker cup from him and a copy of the room assignments. “That bad?”

“Fourteen discharges. Going on fifteen. And ER is _packed_.”

Bucky winced. “Nice…”

“The frigging counter is a jungle. My allergies are killin’ me, Buck.”

“Move some of it into the break room,” Bucky suggested. “Or I will, if you want.”

“Uh-uh. I ain’t lettin’ ya get away from the hot seat that easily.” Steve motioned to his secretary’s chair smugly. “Welcome to work, buddy.” Bucky didn’t blame him; he was just as grateful to get the hell out of dodge when Steve showed up with his usual bright smile at six-thirty AM. 

“That sounds ominous. I’m a little afraid.”

“You should be.”

Bucky block-printed the staff names on the whiteboard, then stopped himself from groaning aloud when he saw the Red Team two oncology staff pick for the night. 

Fuckin’ Wilson. _Great._ That just made Bucky’s night. His cheeks heated up all the way to his ears, and he felt that weird little prickle across his scalp in response to the last time that he had to work with Sam. The next twelve hours stretched ahead of Bucky futilely, and he wondered again to himself, _How was this his life?_ How? Why?

Why him?

“You okay?” Steve asked.

“Huh?”

“You’re making the face again.”

“No’m not,” Bucky insisted.

“Are, too. I know that look.” Steve cocked one sandy brow at him, and the corner of his mouth twitched, but Bucky waved him off.

“I’m not making the face.”

“He decided to pick up a cash shift. Nat called off sick,” Steve told him simply. “And it wasn’t his turn to float.”

Bucky exhaled heavily through his nose. 

Okay. _Okay._

Bucky took his seat while Steve went over the report on the clipboard with him. “Room nineteen’s been discharged. The gurney van is coming at twenty-one-thirty to take them home with hospice. And you might have an acute-to-acute transfer for a pede once Shield Regional Medical has an available bed. I already printed the packet.”

“Bless your soul.”

“Room nine is a screamer. She pulled out her IV twice. We moved her to a high-viz room, but get the aides in there fast. She’s on a bed alarm, too. Room five has a sitter. We have two comfort care patients and one on telemetry. America is sitting with a pede today. Cute little three-day old.”

Bucky’s face softened. “What’s going on there?”

“Whole family was in a car accident. The dad is in ICU. Mom had to see about him, and she’s been in and out for feedings.”

“That’s rough.”

“Yeah. It sucks. Cute baby, though. Really fat little cheeks.” Steve’s voice sounded fond. 

“Awwww.”

“Hey. I’ll be back. I’ve gotta pee.”

“Run, rabbit, run.”

Steve snickered before hurrying off. Bucky answered the call light with a brisk, pleasant “Nurse’s station, may I help you?” and winced when the answering voice, shrill and sharp, burned through his ear drums. He held the handset away from his ear as his patient in room nine screeched at him. “I’ll get the aide in there in a moment.”

NOC shift. His home away from home.

*

Sam huddled in the physician’s charting room, checking his email and timesheet at the PC before he had to take report. The last of the brain fog from the Unisom Sleep Tab slowly dissipated as he drank in the sounds and smells of the ward; the pill, the sleeping mask, the noise-cancelling earplugs, and the blackout curtains in his room were all no match for his dumbass neighbor who decided to mow his lawn and run his leaf blower for two hours, because he was a retiree whose wife had a mile-long honey-do list. Sam slept like shit, and he toyed again with the thought of the infusion center. They had an open spot, it was day shift, four-tens a week, and Riley kept bragging about his easier workload ever since he transferred there. And it was tempting, of course. Of fucking _course_.

Sam huffed. Nah.

Sam loved oncology nursing on the ward. It was his passion, even though it was grueling. Sam lived and breathed the rhythm of the work. Pain med dosage schedules, critical labs, chemo and radiation therapy cycles. Spending half the night in impermeable gowns and hanging chemo meds. Staying so busy he didn’t get to half of his charting until three AM. Ah, that was the life…

So what if it was a little lonely?

Sam counted the weeks until his next vacation. Seven more to go until Cabo. He needed it. _Badly_. So fucking badly. Sam needed to decompress for a while, get caught up on sleep, and disconnect his phone for a while so his mama would quit with the concerned calls and attempts to set him up again. Sam managed to make it home once a month to DC to go with her to church like the dutiful son that he was, which he had no excuse to avoid now that he was single again. T’Challa told him casually over dinner at their favorite restaurant that he was returning to Wakanda for a two-year research project, and that he wasn’t planning to take Sam with him. Sam lost his appetite before the waiter had even brought the appetizer.

When Sam logged off the PC and headed to the break room, the scent of coffee assailed his senses. He smirked; Barnes was back. Nobody else made it that strong.

Time to go out and give him shit…

There he was, sitting there in the snug dri-fit polo shirt with the hospital logo that hugged his chest and matched his eyes. “What’s up, Vanilla Ice?” Sam drawled. 

Bucky’s steely blue eyes narrowed at him as Sam took his nursing assignment sheets and his work phone. “You still pretending you work here, Wilson?”

“Hey. As long as my badge still lets me in the front gate, I’m milking it for all its worth. And if they let _you_ run the desk, how picky can they be?”

“Punk,” Bucky hissed under his breath as Sam ambled off. 

It was the little things. 

Once in a while, Sam had to get Bucky’s goat. And the thing is, that was how Sam got Bucky’s attention.

Bucky kinda loved to hate him.

Sam, the nurse who Bucky had to chase down to get him to review the diet list and hand in his phone before the end of shift. Sam, who always ran off with Bucky’s desk scissors or used the last of his flavored creamer. Sam, who always managed to lean back in his chair and take up all the space in the tiny charting room behind the nurses’ station whenever Bucky had to get in there to get his I&O sheets or other paperwork out of the cabinet.

“Can you move your seat in a little?” Bucky would ask.

“No.”

Because of _course_ not.

Sam _loved_ watching Bucky stand on his tippy toes to try to narrow himself to squeeze past him, sitting there straight-faced and enjoying his disgruntled sigh. Served him right for wearing all that cologne. That Obsession for Men was overdoing it a little, Barnes. Once in a while, though, Sam managed to drive him batshit without even trying, like that time that Sam opened the printer paper tray right when Bucky tried to print his census report, and the whole thing jammed. 

“Oops…”

“WILSON! Seriously?!?”

“I hear my IV pump beeping… sorry, Barnes. You can handle this, can’t you? You’re an expert at paper jams.”

And by the time Sam snuck back to the nurse’s station to grab another bag of saline, Barnes was _still_ bent over the printer, grumbling and trying to pinch the crumpled sheets of paper out from between the rollers and feeders. Maybe Sam wasn’t remorseful enough. Not when it gave him a perfect view of that _ass_ bent over, encased in those khaki Dickies pants. 

*

Bucky stirred his Tupperware container of leftover chicken soup with the black plastic spoon, tasted it, and made a face before sticking it back into the microwave. Still cold in the middle. 

The shift had been rough so far. Room nine was wearing him out. Three more admits were on the way, along with a transfer from Cardiovascular who was coming to them for comfort measures. The highlight of Bucky’s night so far was the toddler who came cruising through the unit in a little plastic car shaped like a pink princess carriage, with her mother in tow, pushing her IV pole while the little girl sang “Mr. Sun, SUN, Mr. Golden SUN! Please shine down on meeeeeee…” 

Sam had looked up from his charting and grinned at Bucky, showing his dimples despite the exhaustion that Bucky saw etched around his eyes. “Cutie,” he mouthed. Bucky nodded emphatically. They shared a soft spot for kids; Bucky kept his drawer well-stocked with stickers and coloring pages, and Sam made frequent trips to the dollar store for small toys and books for the play room. Bucky had been pleasantly surprised when he saw Sam dropping them off with America, hearing him tell her that he was due for another trip to pick up some odds and ends, anyway.

Bucky retrieved his personal phone from his locker and scowled as he checked his messages.

_Hey, James. Are you still coming on Saturday? Brock RSVP’ed yes already. I sent out the invite to both of you before you told me what was going on. No pressure, you know that, right?_

Bucky sighed before he texted Jessica back.

_He’s going? He already told you he is?_

He wasn’t expecting her to still be awake. The screen bubbled up at him as she typed.

_Yup. With a plus one. That’s what he put on the reply card. I had to do a double take; I thought at first that meant he was coming with you._

Well, _fuck_.

That revelation felt like a slap.

_I get it if you don’t want to come._

Bucky heard the microwave beep at him and realized he’d been standing there stewing for several minutes while his soup grew cold again.

A plus one. That soon, Brock?

Bucky felt that crawling sensation over his scalp again. He scrubbed his palm over his face and leaned back against the edge of the kitchen counter. Sure. They had split up. Brock was a free man, and he could poke his dick into whomever he wanted now, right?

Bucky decided to wait until morning to tell Jess that he was bowing out of the party. Maybe he was being cowardly, but. No.

So, so much no.

Their broken engagement was still fresh enough that the news of it was moving at a slow trickle through the ranks of Bucky and Brock’s mutual friends. Bucky had been avoiding checking <strike>stalking</strike> Brock’s Facebook page, because seeing the relationship status of “Single” would shove him a little too close to the edge. 

Sam wandered into the break room with a brown, cardboard to-go box from the cafeteria downstairs, his personal phone, and his commuter cup. He automatically turned on the TV with the remote, changing the channel to CNN. Bucky didn’t feel like arguing with him that he didn’t want to listen to the news on his break when he was already in a crappy mood. 

“You look like somebody pissed in your coffee, Barnes.”

“At least pretend that it wasn’t you, Wilson. Sheesh…”

Sam snickered and plunked himself down on one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs, propping his feet on another. He sighed and rubbed his nape, drawing Bucky’s attention to those biceps. Sam filled out his dark purple scrubs beautifully, and Bucky wanted to resent him for the lack of effort that it took him to look that good. Sam Wilson was a dick, but he was a _gorgeous_ dick. The smooth, flawless dark skin. The smoldering brown eyes that always managed to twinkle at Bucky’s expense. That _mouth_. God, Bucky loved and hated that mouth. 

Bucky tried and failed to ignore him as he scrolled through his apps. His last photo from his vacation with Brock to Martha’s Vineyard that spring was still getting new likes on Instagram, to his annoyance; Bucky contemplated deleting it. 

“I’m going to be hanging chemo in room four,” Sam told him. “I’ll be in iso for a while. If my other patients need anything while I’m in there, call team lead.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, I’m just telling you now.”

“You know I love blowing up your phone for no reason and waking the whole unit,” Bucky deadpanned. “I woke up with the sole goal today of bugging the crap out of Samuel Thomas Wilson.” Bucky adopted a simpering voice and held up his hand with his thumb to his ear and pinky to his mouth, speaking into the imaginary phone handset. “Sam? I know you’re in the middle of a timed med, but can you walk a patient? Or check a BM? Or come back to the nurse’s station to shine my shoes?”

Sam nearly choked on his cauliflower. Bucky snorted and toyed with the remainder of his soup.

“Hey,” Sam told him. “I’m sorry. Okay? I know I come off as an asshole once in a while. I don’t mean it.”

“Sure you don’t.” But Bucky winked at him and reached down to flick the sole of Sam’s shoe where it stuck out from its perch on the chair. “I know how busy you get. I’m just the secretary, man. I have to call you guys.”

“Why do you think we can’t wait to give up the phones at the end of the shift?” Sam reminded him dryly. 

Sam wasn’t joking. Every nurse and CNA on the unit practically threw the phones at him when Bucky came around to collect them and return them to the charging deck, grinning at him like they won the Lotto. 

“You could end up giving a guy the idea that you don’t wanna hear from him, buddy.” 

“Awwwww. Somebody call the waaaah-mbulance,” Sam crooned, rubbing away pretend tears with his knuckle.

“You’re such a _punk._”

* 

Bucky fought exhaustion for the rest of the shift and wrapped up his paperwork, randomly disinfecting his work station and checking his fall risk list again just to stay awake. Five AM rolled around with several call lights for help to the bathroom and more critical result calls from Lab. Same old, same old. The text from Jess still nagged at Bucky.

A plus one. That soon. Brock had already RSVP'd yes. So it was a done deal, right? Bucky couldn’t go to the engagement party. Why do that to himself? 

Except… fuck.

Carol and Jessica were Bucky’s friends first. Jessica was one of his best friends in college when they both matriculated as juniors and lived on the same floor of the dorm. So Brock had been quicker on the jump when the invitation showed up in the mail. So what? Did that mean that he called dibs? Hell, no.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Barnes.”

That was Sam. His voice was a low, husky rasp from the lateness of the hour and a night spent talking on the phone to hospitalists and Pharmacy. 

“M’about ready to collapse,” he admitted. “And I haven’t been sleeping worth crap lately.”

Sam grunted. “What’s going on?”

“Just some stuff at home.”

Bucky thought he almost imagined it when he saw Sam’s dark eyes flick over his left hand for a moment.

“Stuff, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Not worth explaining?”

“It’s really _not_.”

“Okay,” Sam conceded. But as he walked away to check on a beeping IV pump, he muttered, “You can do a hell of a lot better than Brock.”

*

Bucky couldn’t shake the tiny, pleased feeling that remained with him until the end of the shift. Which of course evaporated when Wilson cut him off in the parking garage on the way out and even honked his horn for spite. 

“FUCKER!” Bucky shouted as he blared his own horn back and flipped him the bird, but he was already around the corner.

*

“The universe hates me,” Bucky insisted to Steve the next night as he read the assignment and saw Sam listed as the chemo nurse for the night again. 

“Sure it does, Buck.” Steve looked smug again, and Bucky held himself back from shoving him. 

Bucky still hadn’t replied to Jessica. He told himself that he’d get around to it.

*

Sam refilled his commuter cup from the coffee pot, grateful that Barnes had made it strong enough for the spoon to practically stand up straight by itself in the cup. Just the way Sam liked it.

He spied the large, rectangular pink box of donuts and lifted the lid. The large, glossy apple fritter called to him. Sam knew Bucky would want it. It was his favorite. Sam peeled off an evil chuckle as he plucked it out of the box and took a decadent bite.

Bucky appeared as though he had summoned him, just as Sam was wrapping the rest of it in a paper towel. Sam bit his lip when he heard his indignant squawk. “HEY! Who took my fritter?”

“Who could have done that?: Sam agreed as he sucked the icing off his fingertips for emphasis, right before hurrying out of the kitchen.

“Damn it, Wilson!’

Because, again. That _mouth_. Bucky wondered how Wilson managed to piss him off at the same time that he made him pop a boner. To heck with that guy…

Once the shift settled down and the call light button slowed a little, Bucky texted Steve to commiserate and to get a little sympathy.

_He took my fucking fritter!_

Steve didn’t indulge him, though, the little shit. _You should have licked it to claim ownership. Do that next time._

Bucky rolled his eyes. _Sure wish it had been his turn to float or for an LC._

Steve’s reply was quick. _Sure you do. C’mon. You live for the nights when you get to boss him around._

_Yeah, right._ Bucky added some frowning faces and a poop emoji. 

Still. Every now and again, there were perks to being the unit secretary. Like when the CNAs went into report at morning shift change. And every one-person or standby assist patient in the wing needed to use the commode, and Bucky had to call his bedside RNs to help. 

“Everybody’s in report,” Bucky sang when Sam went grumbling off to help.

“I hate you,” Sam huffed.

“Thank you,” Bucky told him cheerfully.

*

By the time Bucky finished his third twelve-hour shift, his insomnia was catching up to him. All he wanted to do was sleep through the weekend, but he still hadn’t RSVP’ed to Jess. They did get the gift he ordered from their Amazon registry, at least, so that base was covered, but. It just felt so half-assed. Bucky felt like a crap friend. He just couldn’t deal with the sight of Brock and how that would inevitably make him feel. Those old urges to want to touch him were still strong, and they sure as hell didn’t help.

Sam looked up from scrolling through his Outlook messages. “Why the long face?” His usual smirk faltered, and a tiny notch formed between his eyebrows. Bucky shrugged.

“Just wishing it wasn’t the weekend.”

Sam’s lips twisted. “So, you’d rather be _here?_”

“I’m avoiding a party.”

“Ah.” Sam folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, giving Bucky the chance to admire the sight of him in a red Under Armour tee and black scrub pants. “Family?”

“Uh-uh. Engagement party for my college friends. My ex is already planning to go.”

Sam lifted his hand in a dismissive gesture. “And? So, either go or don’t go. You’re a grownup, Barnes. But, it’s a free country. And if it’s an engagement party, it means free alcohol.”

Sam had a point.

“I just… I don’t know.” Bucky didn’t even know why he was explaining this to Wilson, anyway. “We broke up. I just feel like I don’t know who got custody of our friends when we split.”

Sam tsked. “Damn. Yeah, I feel that in my soul. It’s… yeah. I get it. And that sucks. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”

Bucky grunted, nodding miserably before he went back to making the discharge packet.

“So, when’s the party?”

“Saturday night,” Bucky told him. “In two days. I’m already thinking I’m not gonna go. I’m just dragging my feet with actually telling Jessica that I just don’t have the spoons to go.”

“Don’t have the spoons,” Sam mused. “Well, what if you had a date?”

“Where am I going to get a date that quick?”

“Free alcohol,” Sam pronounced. “Finger food. Vanessa Carlton and Taylor Swift music playing in the background? Am I in the ballpark?”

“Wait-”

“C’mon, now. I’ve got a nice new shirt I just picked up from TJ Maxx. I’ll even bathe.”

“You want to be my date?”

“For appearances,” Sam told him. 

Bucky’s face was taking a journey.

“I’ll let you pay me back the favor whenever you want. Well, never mind, that’s a lie.”

“Pay you back the… wait.”

“Look, it’s a win-win,” Sam told him, warming to the idea as it formed. “You need a date on your arm. Well, you’ll be on _my_ arm, because let’s face it, it’s _me._” Sam gestured to himself, eyes twinkling, and Bucky bit his lip.

“God, you’re full of shit.”

“C’mon. I need an excuse to test out my new shirt. You need a date. And then, I need a date, myself.”

“For what?”

“A trip home. My mama’s trying to fix me up again, and I need you to help me assure her that she doesn’t need to go to the trouble. Just flash those Barnes dimples and bat those long, pretty eyelashes of yours, and we’ll be good. We’ll do each other a solid.”

“Are you serious right now, Wilson?”

“As a heart attack.”

“You’ll be my date.”

“Yup. That’s what I said.”

“To go with me to the party and do date-type things.”

Sam held up his hand. “To an extent.”

A slow smile spread across Bucky’s face, and Sam felt a frisson of panic, because… wow.

That _face_. That _mouth_. Mischief danced in those blue-gray eyes. 

“Can I feed you off of my plate? Do I get to whisper sweet nothings in your ear?”

“Let’s not take things too far, now.”

“If they play a slow song, do I get to grab your ass, Sammy?”

Sam snerked. “Fuck off, Barnes…”

“Hey, a guy’s gotta try.”

“You ain’t right.”

“Hey, this was _your_ idea. Just remember that.”

“So, what time do you want me to pick you up?”

It hit Bucky then that Sam meant it. He was really offering Bucky a simple, yet truly ridiculous solution to his problem.

“Well. Fuck. Seven. Pick me up at seven.”

*

Bucky couldn’t believe he was actually doing this.

He kneaded a handful of leave-in conditioner through his damp locks and went through the familiar motions of getting ready for a night out. Normally by now, Brock would be nagging Bucky to iron him a shirt or asking him where he’d left his keys or favorite pair of socks. It felt good to be able to pamper himself without having to coddle Mr. Needy. Their apartment - his apartment, now - felt too big and a little lonely, but the silence was beginning to feel vaguely like peace.

Bucky sprayed on some of his cologne, mentally thumbing his nose at Wilson, because he knew he’d give Bucky shit about it. Bucky enjoyed it, so he was wearing it. Bucky put on a black buttondown, short-sleeved shirt with a bold white floral print and well-cut linen slacks with a sharp crease. It felt good to just… feel good. And to look good. Despite the fact that this wasn’t a real date, Bucky was beginning to look forward to it.

*

Sam cut the price tags off the new shirt and laid out fresh cotton briefs, undershirt and his good black slacks on the bed before he stepped into the shower. Alexa played Stevie Wonder for him in the background, and Sam sang along to “Superstitious” as the hot spray pelted his chest. 

His morning had been filled with errands. Mailing his sister a birthday card. Costco run for gas and snacks. An hour-and-a-half at the gym to swim laps. Going to the bank. And shipping the last of T’Challa’s odds and ends back to him via international mail in a neatly taped box. Sam fought the wave of melancholy at handling his belongings before letting them - and him - go. 

Okay. So, maybe his suggestion to Barnes was a little nuts. No. Scratch that. This was totally out in left field and had the potential to turn into a clusterfuck. Sam worked with Bucky. It was a risk hanging out with work friends after work hours, anyway, and this… well.

This felt an awful lot like a date. No matter how convenient it was for the two of them - for Sam, a distraction, and for Bucky, a smoke screen and a fuck-off to his ex - Sam just hoped this didn’t blow up in their faces.

Then, he scoffed to himself. “Free drinks. And we get to throw Mama off the scent for a while when he returns the favor. Calm down, Samuel.” He massaged the shea butter and coconut oil shampoo into his hair and let his worries run down the drain.

Besides, it was just Barnes. They’d do each other a favor, and then it was business as usual. Back to getting on each other’s damned nerves.

*

Bucky stumbled a little as he finished pulling on his loafer while he hurried to answer the intercom. “Coming, I’m coming!” he called out before he actually reached it and hit the reply button. “Hey. Wilson, is that you?”

“Is that who you want me to be?” Sam joked. “C’mon, man. Let me in.”

Bucky snickered and hit the button to buzz him in, and what felt like moments later, he heard heavy, thudding footsteps in the stairwell. Bucky felt a flutter of excitement in his stomach, and he checked his hair in the mirror one last time before grabbing his wallet and keys, stuffing them into his pockets. Bucky grinned at the sound of Sam’s sharp knock. “About time you got here, Wilson, I-”

Bucky’s snark died on his lips. _I was gonna put out an APB._ The thought evaporated, along with all the oxygen in the room. _Fuck._

Sam breezed inside, goatee freshly trimmed, smelling delectable and making Bucky’s pants feel too tight around his vital parts. 

“What? I know it _looks_ like I woke up like this, Barnes, but this takes effort. Especially after the week I had.”

_Jesus_.

The buttondown shirt was unbuttoned to Bucky’s chest, showing off the long line of his neck and an enticing glimpse of his flesh. His hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, tempting Sam and making him wish he could touch it and find out if it felt as soft as it looked.

Sam’s shirt was a warm, burnt orange raw silk. He looked good enough to _eat_.

They stared at each other for a moment, words failing them. 

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183133495@N02/48817456646/in/dateposted-public/)

Bucky broke the silence. “Where did you park?”

“Huh?” 

“The car?”

“Oh. Right. It’s… I won’t get towed, will I? Down front.”

“It’s after the hour when they check the meters,” Bucky assured him. “Let’s skedaddle.”

Sam smirked. “You didn’t just say ‘skedaddle.’ You’re channeling your inner preschool teacher, Barnes.”

*

It wasn’t a real date. 

Bucky told himself that as Sam gently placed his hand at Bucky’s lower back as he unlocked the passenger side and asked him if he was getting enough air conditioning from the vents on his side. 

“Where’d you get the shirt?”

“Huh?”

“That shirt. It’s nice. You look nice in it.”

“My sister Becca gave it to me on my birthday.”

“When is it again? March tenth?”

Bucky didn’t even try to suppress his smile. “Yeah. You remembered.”

Sam shrugged, and he hoped Bucky didn’t notice his blush.

“You’re not gonna give me shit about my cologne?”

“Pfffffttt… it’s fine.”

“You sure do complain about it.”

“Barnes. It’s Obsession. Nineteen eighty-five called. It wants its signature scent back.” Bucky laughed. “Nah. It’s fine. You’re about the only man I’ve met who can actually wear it. You must just have the right chemistry for it, because it reeks on everybody else.”

“At least it’s not Drakkar,” Bucky reasoned.

“Hey! I wore the hell out of Drakkar in high school!”

“Then you had no game, my friend.”

“Oh, I beg to _differ_. I had all of the game, Barnes!”

Bucky and Sam bickered for most of the ride to Carol and Jessica’s apartment, and it slowly dawned on Bucky that Sam had actually complimented him. Twice. 

Kind of.

“Which one is it again?”

“The brownstone on the corner.”

They drove down the avenue and found a place to park, and Bucky was suddenly loath to leave the plush leather interior of Sam’s car, as well as its privacy. He was just enjoying the conversation with Sam, so help him. They got out, Sam met him around the passenger side, and he companionably held out the crook of his arm. Bucky laughed.

“We’re actually doing this?”

“Showtime,” Sam assured him.

“Okay. We’re doing this.” Bucky smirked and took Sam’s arm, feeling warm prickles run up his flesh. Sam smelled so good, and the skin of his forearm felt warm, soft and taut over his muscular bicep. They climbed the steps and entered the lobby door, and Bucky rapped on the door when they reached it. 

“Did I call it or what?” Sam murmured as they heard strains of Taylor Swift drift out to them.

“Yeah, you did.”

Footsteps rushed for the door, Bucky watched a shadow pass through the tiny peephole, and Bucky heard Jessica’s pleased squeal of “It’s Bucky, Carol! He’s here! And he has a cute friend!” before she yanked open the door. “Hi!” she greeted breathlessly. Jessica long, dark tresses were softly curled and fell loosely down her back. She was barefoot and wearing a strappy red dress and several beaded necklaces, with silver rings on every finger of her right hand. She sported her engagement diamond on her left, and her face was radiant. She pulled them both inside, and Bucky swept her up in a gentle hug.

“C’mon, now, Bucky, introduce me! To whom do I have the pleasure?”

“Sam Wilson. We met at work.”

Not _We work together._ Bucky bit his lip. He wondered what kind of spin Sam was planning to put on this.

“Sam’s an amazing nurse,” Bucky clarified. “Oncology.”

“All that and looks, too?” Jess teased. “God, look at you. Just… wow. Okay! Come on in, let’s get you two settled in with a drink!” 

Carol glanced up from a conversation with a short, stocky, handsome man of middle years with the most impressive sideburns Bucky or Sam had ever seen. “Ooh, just a minute, Patch, I need to go say hi.”

“G’wan ahead, Ace. It’s yer shindig, go over and mingle. I’m gonna relieve that cooler of yers of another one of these. It’s lookin’ too full.”

“Be my guest! Hey!” she told Bucky. “_Hey,_” she told Sam. “Hello, there.” She laid a slender hand on Sam’s arm and gave it an assessing squeeze. “Introduce me, Bucky,” she told him, but she was staring into Sam’s pretty eyes when she tacked on a purring, determined “_please_.”

Bucky wanted to ask her, _Aren’t you engaged?_ “This is Sam. My date.”

“Charmed.” Sam shook her hand warmly, and she beamed.

“So, how long have you two…?” Carol motioned between them, and Bucky felt his cheeks heat up. He glanced at Sam, deciding to let him do the talking.

“We’ve known each other for a long time. Feels like we met just yesterday.”

Bucky swallowed back a laugh. But then he felt Sam’s hand catch his, and his brain short-circuited at the sensation of his long, dexterous fingers lacing themselves through his own. 

Well. Okay.

It felt like a statement.

And it felt nice. Very nice.

Bucky squeezed his hand and lightly rubbed the edge of his thumb over Sam’s knuckle in a fleeting caress.

Sam shivered in response, but he recovered from it quickly. So, that was how Barnes wanted to play it?

“Time flies,” Bucky added. 

“How long have you two been together?” Sam inquired.

“Oh, me and Jess? Practically forever. Oh, my God, we’re such old news! I’ve been so gone on her, pretty much since we both took Survey of Anthropology together.”

“It was just meant to be. Congratulations.”

“Awwwww! Hey, you need drinks! Help yourselves, we’ve got beer in the cooler if Logan doesn’t drink them all, and vodka-cran, and club soda, diet soda, whatever your pleasure.”

Jessica played bartender and brought them a vodka cranberry and plain orange juice; memory served Bucky that Sam was always guzzling it. Couldn’t get enough of it. 

“You don’t want anything stronger?” Carol asked.

“I drove us here,” he pointed out.

Bucky felt a little guilty at making Sam the designated driver, but Sam winked at him. “You got to ride shotgun,” he joked. “That way, we don’t end up crammed into the backseat of an Uber.”

“Reminds me of high school, crammed into the backseat of Becca’s car with at least four of our friends so we wouldn’t have to ride the bus,” Bucky admitted. Sam’s nose scrunched up and he nodded in agreement. It was cute.

Jessica left the kitchen for a couple of minutes, but soon she hurried back in. “So, hey. Bucky. Guess who just got here?” She twisted her fingers nervously. “Just guess.”

But before Bucky could even react, he heard Brock’s familiar, gritty baritone from the foyer. “Sorry we’re late, we hit a snag of traffic off of Fifth and… oh, hey.”

Brock’s expression mingled smugness and surprise at the sight of Bucky, as a tall brunet with sharp bone structure and broad shoulders flanked his side. “I didn’t think you’d make it, Jamie.”

“I RSVP’d,” Bucky told him. Just barely, he didn’t add.

“Yeah. So did we. Whaddya know? Hey, there. I’m Brock, Bucky and I used to-”

Brock’s dark eyes flitted down to their joined hands. Sam squeezed Bucky’s again for good measure and smiled his most charming smile.

“Pleasure. Bucky mentioned you. He thought you might come.”

If Bucky had chosen that moment to take a sip of his drink, he would have horked it through his nose.

Sam felt the tension in Bucky’s body, and he bumped their shoulders together. Bucky forced himself to relax.

Brock looked good. Damned good. His characteristic five o’clock shadow was beginning to make an appearance on his lean jaw, even though Bucky was sure he had shaved that night. His olive skin looked more darkly tanned than usual, like he’d been swimming or camping. His hair was artfully tousled, but it still looked like he had a recent trim. It hurt to see him there with someone new.

“This is Jack.”

He was taller than Bucky and had a firm, almost bruising handshake. Bucky hated him on sight. But he gave him a curt smile and brief nod. 

And his pulse jumped when Sam released his hand and instead coiled his arm around his shoulders instead.

“You getting a chill, Bucky? The A/C is turned up a little high in here. It might be warmer out on the patio,” Sam offered. “Excuse us.” Sam steered them away. Bucky felt off-balance, like his world tilted off its axis. Sam just helped him escape from his ex-fiancee and his date.

Once Sam urged him out through the sliding door and closed it behind them, Bucky let out a choked burst of laughter.

“Fuck…”

“Sorry. That. That wasn’t all that smooth-”

“No! No. Sam. It was. It’s just… fuck. I thought I was ready, but… it’s hard. It’s hard seeing up close that he’s… never mind.”

“No. No, Barnes, I get it. Okay? I get it. It sucks. But, the thing is, it doesn’t have to. Free drinks, right? Finger foods? Taylor Swift?”

Bucky shook his head. “Let’s see if they’ll play some Naughty by Nature, instead. Jess loves nineties hip-hop.”

Sam grinned. “That almost makes up for me being the designated driver tonight.”

They leaned against the edge of the patio railing, shoulder to shoulder. “It was drafty in there,” Sam remarked.

“Sure it was, Wilson.”

Sam elbowed him lightly. “Was that too much?”

“I told you to be ready for me to grab your ass on the dance floor,” Bucky teased, even though he wasn’t ready to go quite that far in the interest of showing Brock that he’d moved on, or at least that he wasn’t planning to cry over him anymore. _Much._

“I’m going to refill this,” Sam mentioned, holding up his empty juice glass. “And I’ll grab us some of the hors d'oeuvres.”

“How about the wings? And the stuffed mushrooms?”

“You’d have me eat fungus? You’re such a heathen, Barnes.”

“Hey, all the more for me. Fungus. It’s what’s for dinner.”

Sam went back inside. Bucky listened to the muted conversations and music through the glass doors, overlaid with the more subtle outdoor sounds of nighttime crickets and cruising cars.

“Free drinks, free food and Taylor Swift,” he muttered. And, Brock and his new <strike>taller</strike> man. Okay. Bucky could do this.

All of this was just better with Sam. 

*

Bucky studiously avoided eye contact with Brock and Jack, something made easier by Sam’s constant quips and the fabricated “history” of their new relationship that was starting to make Bucky blush.

“All the patients just love this man,” Sam claimed. “All of the patients’ family members just gush over Bucky. “‘Oh, he’s so sweet, he has the face of an angel,’” Sam mimicked. “I noticed that before he ever agreed to go out with me.”

“Look who’s talking. Sam’s the best he is at what he does.”

“I’ve been told that, too,” Carol’s friend Logan bragged. “But I wanna hear more about what you do, bub.”

“Oncology nursing. It’s my passion.”

“Good fer you, bub.” Logan saluted him with his bottle of Molson and clapped him on the shoulder.

Sam began to tell him about his work and school experience, and Bucky slowly grew more and more impressed. ROTC. Graduated from Howard University. Worked as a paramedic and then a CNA, and then went to nursing school when he decided Computer Science and Engineering wasn’t what he wanted, after all. 

“You were a paramedic?”

“I never mentioned that?”

“Not up until now.” Bucky gave him a lopsided grin. “All the cutest guys work as paramedics.”

“The work boots, baseball cap and earwhig does it for you?”

“Don’t forget the polo shirt,” Bucky added.

“The one made of that crappy, heavy cotton? The ones that I threw onto the trash heap because they used to make me sweat my ass off?”

“Yeah. Bet you looked pretty hot.”

“I made it work,” Sam admitted. “You never rocked the scrubs?”

“I don’t want anyone to mistake me for anyone who could save their lives,” Bucky told him. “I’m just the secretary.”

“‘Just the secretary,’” Sam scoffed. “You hold everything together, baby. That’s no small task.”

And. Well. That just pleased Bucky all the way down to the ground.

*

The ride home was a pleasant, fuzzy blur. Sam had let Bucky back into the car with the same easy proximity as before, with his hand at his back, and Bucky was beginning to enjoy the contact.

“Okay. So. We on for next week?” Sam asked.

“Huh?”

“Mama’s house.”

That woke Bucky up from his haze. “Shit. Right. You… you wanted me to go with you on… a date? Right? Like, tonight’s?”

“Well. Yeah. I mean, my ex won’t be coming, so. It’s really just gonna be my family. My sister, my brother. My gossipy aunts. Nothing too far out of the ordinary.”

Bucky’s stomach unknotted itself slightly at that. “No ex?”

“He’s out of town,” Sam supplied. “But. Yeah. He’s an ex.”

“Mutual decision?”

“Doesn’t really have to be when one of you wants out, does it?” Sam murmured. There was an edge to his voice, despite the casual smile he gave Bucky.

“That’s. Okay. Right. You’re right. Still sucks, though… right?”

“Maybe not as much _now_. The whole world was missing _this_.” Sam waggled his eyebrows and gave Bucky a studly look that earned him a snicker.

“Gotta give ‘em what they want, then, Wilson.”

“Not _immediately_. But I’ll be glad when my mama quits her attempts at matchmaking. If I beat her to the punch and bring _you_ home, you’ll have done me the favor of a lifetime. Just flash those dimples and bat those eyelashes, turn on that Barnes ‘Blue Steel’ charm, and we’re golden. And you’re in luck, because Mama can cook.”

“So, more free food and booze?”

“Minus the Taylor Swift.”

“That’s not a dealbreaker. Okay. That’s fine. I’m in, bud.”

“It might help if you come up with something else to call me besides ‘bud.’ Or ‘Wilson.’”

Dimly, Bucky remembered Sam slipping and calling him “baby” earlier.

“Okay, Puddin’.”

“Oh, Good Lord…!” Sam snorted and gave Bucky a little shove.

“Sweet sugar bear?”

“That’s… no. Let’s go with that. It makes me sound like the neighborhood pimp.”

“I like Puddin’ better.”

Sam parked and walked Bucky up to his front door. Bucky’s lips twisted and he felt his ears tingle.

“This is cute, Sam, but you don’t have to keep it up when no one’s watching.”

“Gotta practice. I’ve never ended a date without walking them to the door.”

“Ooh. This is still a _date_.” Bucky’s eyes crinkled, and Sam enjoyed his grin despite himself. Despite the situation, and the ridiculousness of it all.

This _was_ ridiculous. But, what was the harm, right?

“Do we hug it out, or would that make it weird?” Bucky added as they climbed the stairs and reached his front door.

“Pfffft. That’d make it weird, all right,” Sam agreed, but before Bucky could fit his key into the lock, Sam reached for his hand and gave it a light tug, and Bucky “mmMMph”ed in surprise when Sam’s soft lips brushed over his in a tentative, enticing caress. He withdrew before Bucky could enjoy it or even comprehend what had just happened. “G’night!”

“O. Kay.” Bucky’s hand floated up in an approximation of a wave as Sam trotted back down the stairs. “Night…”

What in the _heck_ had just happened?

*

Sam’s easy smile faded as soon as he pushed the key into the ignition.

“What the _hell_ did you just do, Wilson?”

*

“What did you end up doing this weekend? I Facebook messaged you on Sunday,” Steve accused while Bucky clipped together the nursing assignments and disinfected the phones.

“I know. I’m sorry. I got that message too late to get back to you. I was busy for most of it. I went to Carol and Jessica’s engagement shindig.”

“Oh. That was this weekend? How did that go?”

“It. It was. Good. Pretty decent, actually.” 

“Lots of people you know showed up?”

“Not that many, but… it was fine.”

Bucky felt his face heat up. He scrubbed at the phones more furiously and listened to Steve answering the call lights and promising that he would send help for the bedpan.

But Steve remembered what Bucky had told him before. “Wait. Didn’t you say Brock was probably gonna show up?”

“He did.”

“Shit. How did that go?” Steve’s brows drew together, and he craned himself around in his chair, dangling his skinny arm down the back. His deep-set blue eyes looked concerned behind this gold-rimmed reading glasses. “Was everything fine?”

“It might not have been if I’d shown up by myself.” Bucky braced himself. “I might’ve found myself a date.”

Steve grunted, nodding. “Nice. Who?”

_”If I could fall...into the sky...do you think time, would pass me by,_” Sam crooned in a lofty falsetto as he cruised by the nursing station and grabbed his assignment and then plucked his phone from Bucky’s grip. He made finger guns at Bucky, winked at him, and then used the phone as a mic as he continued, “Cause you know I’d walk a thousand miles if I could just… seeeee, yooouuuuuu-TONIGHT!”

Steve and Bucky both gave him the prerequisite slow clap.

“Don’t you people have work to do?” Nick demanded smoothly. “We could always start quiet hours _now_?”

Bucky ignored him and turned to Sam briefly. “What time, again?” he murmured.

“Huh? Oh. Four. Just.. drop me a text.”

“That’s fine. Yeah. That’s. That’s fine.” Bucky waved him off, and Sam headed for the charting room, still humming Vanessa Carlton under his breath.

“Wilson was sure in a good mood,” Steve wondered aloud.

“Hope the side effects of whatever he’s taking don’t kick in yet,” Bucky joked. “I almost like him this way.”

*

Sam showed up appallingly early on Saturday afternoon. Or, Bucky mused as he answered the intercom and buzzed him inside, it just seemed that way because _he_ was running behind. He scrubbed at his damp hair with the towel as he undid the deadbolts and chain lock. Sam’s footsteps were heavy and quick out in the hall, and Bucky treated himself to a quick look through the peephole.

“Shit,” Bucky hissed. Wow. He’d done it again. Bucky pulled open the door and stepped back, pretending to grip his chest. “Lord, have mercy!” He wolf-whistled at Sam, who entered his apartment with a flourish.

“Hey… oh. Okay. Your, uh. Your shirt’s. Missing.”

“I got held up at Becca’s. She was having her car fixed, and I gave her a ride back home, and then hit traffic on the way back here. And then, every little thing that could go wrong, DID go wrong. I had a clog in my kitchen sink, and I got out the pipe wrench and unscrewed the pipe, and all of the water and slime gushed out all over me. I’m a lot less fragrant now that I took a second shower.”

_And a lot more ripped than I ever imagined._ Bucky’s fair skin was smooth and still rosy from his shower, and water droplets gleamed over his shoulders and neck. His dark, glossy hair hung in damp ringlets around his handsome face, and Sam’s mouth went dry.

“If you don’t wanna give my mama a heart attack, you might wanna put something on,” Sam suggested. “For _her_ sake. I’ll wait.”

“I’ll still feel underdressed next to you. You look like an escapee from a J. Crew catalog, Sammy.” The loafers alone on Sam’s feet looked like they cost about half of Bucky’s paycheck.

“I can’t show up to the house looking raggedy,” Sam explained.

“Not raggedy” involved another gorgeous pair of linen slacks and a pale green guayabera shirt. Sam wandered around Bucky’s living room, making himself at home in his space. Bucky turned to head back to his room, but he heard Sam’s sharp intake of breath.

“What. The. _Hell._ Barnes. What is that on your back?”

“What? My ink?”

“Is that… Sunshine Bear?!?”

Sam howled with laughter, and Bucky spun around and clapped his hand over the tat.

“You can’t give me shit about it!”

“Did you lose a bet?”

“No,” Bucky insisted. Then, “Yes…”

Sam cackled, stomping his feet and clutching his midsection.

“*Sunshine*...bear… you’ve got Sun-Sunshine- WAHAAHAHAHA!”

“Okay, now, that’s enough.” Bucky folded his arms. “It’s not that funny.”

Sam nodded his head emphatically that yes, it sure as hell was, and Bucky rolled his eyes and stalked off.

“C’mon. It’s edgy,” Bucky insisted.

Sam shook his head just as emphatically, and his laughter shifted to crowing outright. “Ain’t nothin’ edgy about _that_. Hoooooooo…” Sam wiped his eyes. “Oh, my God… oh, my God, oh my God… m’sorry. Sorry, Barnes. I’ve got to give you shit about that. It’s ridiculous. God, I haven’t laughed this much in _weeks_.”

“You’re welcome, jerk. Sheesh. Gonna hurt a guy’s ego if you cut up like that every time I take off my clothes.” But Bucky was giving him a lopsided smile, and little crinkles were forming at the corners of his eyes, making Sam’s stomach do a little flip. _Okay. Barnes really needed to stop that._ And he needed to put on a shirt. Sam’s resolve to keep this friendly, for outward appearances, was weakening by the second. 

Bucky disappeared shortly, and Sam checked his phone messages, perching himself against the arm of Bucky’s couch. The apartment was relatively tidy and comfortable; Bucky even had a few houseplants on the kitchen counter that he’d managed not to kill. Just as Sam replied to a text from his brother, Gideon, that they were due on the road any minute, Sam heard a low, plaintive mew, and he huffed at the sight of the sleek, long-haired white cat as it came waddling his way.

“Good Lord, you’re an absolute chunk,” Sam muttered. “G’wan, now. Don’t just assume everybody likes cats, I don’t want… oh, sure, get cat hair all over my good pants.” The cat started nosing at Sam’s leg, purring the entire way and making that little trilling meow that felines did to show off and lure you in. Sam sighed and pulled his leg away, but this little critter wasn’t taking no for an answer. The cat jumped up onto the couch and deposited itself onto Sam’s lap, flicking its tail back and forth.

“Seriously, cat?!” Sam gave the cat a mild shove, but she stayed put and leaned into Sam’s hand to encourage a caress, butting at his knuckles. “Pushy. We call that pushy.” Sam narrowed his eyes at the cat and earned himself a slow squint and more purring for his troubles. He sighed raggedly and gave in, scratching the cat behind her tufted ears. The cat stretched and dug her claws briefly into Sam’s leg, and Sam gave her a warning look. “That’s enough of that.”

“Bucky, come and get this little hairy nuisance, please,” Sam called out.

“Uh-oh. You found Winter?”

“More like she found me,” Sam corrected him. “She decided my outfit wasn’t complete without a dose of cat hair.”

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. She’s a bad girl, but she’s my baby,” Bucky offered, and a few moments later, he reappeared in the room, now clad in an unbuttoned shirt and holding a lint roller. “Just use this before we leave. No point in doing it now that she’s comfortable.” Winter was kneading Sam’s thigh and purring very loudly. “Wow, she loves you. I’ve been replaced. Shit.”

“I could use a little less love…”

“You really don’t like cats?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t ‘dislike’ them, but I don’t love them, either. I’m more of a dog person, if I’m being honest, but I don’t have the time for one that it would deserve.” Sam looked relieved when Bucky plucked his cat from Sam’s lap and cuddled her against his chest.

“Naughty girl, you need to leave Sammy in peace. He showed up looking all decked out and handsome to take us out,” Bucky murmured before he gave the top of her head a kiss. Sam huffed and shook his head as Bucky deposited the cat in his bedroom and closed the door.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183133495@N02/48817611272/in/dateposted-public/)

They left a few minutes later and bickered over Sam’s Pandora stations before Sam reminded him that he needed very specific driving music to ensure a smooth trip. (“Sean Mendes gives me the earworm from hell. That’s a no, Barnes.”) Bucky smirked at Sam’s choice at first, but he tapped his fingers along to Stevie Wonder, unwilling to admit to Sam that he had a nice voice as he sang along. No sense in giving him a swollen head…

“Should I have brought anything?” Bucky asked suddenly.

“Nope. Just yourself. Like I said, just show ‘em all the Barnes ‘Blue Steel,’ and we’ll be fine.”

“Blue Steel… what the hell? You said that before, and I didn’t have a clue.”

“Zoolander? Blue Steel? That puppy dog look you give?” Sam imitated Bucky’s “eager” face, and Bucky crowed, and then cringed.

“I don’t do that. Do I?”

“Keeps folks eating out of your hand, pal.”

“Oh, God…”

“Hey, if it works, it works. Play it up as much as you can. For the sake of this barbecue, you’re my ticket out of Mama fixing me up with anyone from her church.”

“Was the last time a disaster?”

“Not… not quite.” Sam looked a little guilty. He exhaled through his nose.

“Was the last time T’Challa?”

Sam made pointy finger guns. “Bingo.”

“Ah. Got it. Say no more.”

“Some things don’t need explaining.”

“Guess not.”

They were both quiet for a minute. Then, Bucky asked, “Do you miss him?”

“Eh. Well… I guess I miss the _idea_ of him? But then I remember that he _left_?”

Bucky exhaled heavily through his nose and shrugged, nodding. “Yeah. Sucks.”

“Guess you’d know.”

“Every time I start to miss the idea of Brock, he does something to make me wish I could kick my own ass for sticking together as long as we did. Or for agreeing to go out with him in the first place, let alone move in.” Sam smirked. “It’s like missing an awesome looking pair of shoes that give you a blister every time you wear them, but you don’t throw them out, because they were a brand name you love and you got them on sale.”

“But they give you a blister.”

“And they rub your foot fucking raw.”

“Okay, then.” Sam turned his blinker on as they neared the exit. “Hope you’re hungry. Mama makes enough food to feed an army. Just flash those dimples, and she might even pack you up a plate to take home.”

“You know I’m not doing this to return the favor, right? I’m doing it for the food.”

“Man, shut the hell up.”

But Sam’s voice lacked venom. Bucky smiled at the sight of the house as they parked out front. Sam’s mother kept an immaculate garden and front yard. There was a short, white picket fence and gorgeous hedges of azalea bushes, perfectly spaced brick pavers running along the edges of the walkway, and stone steps leading up to the porch.

“It’s like something out of Better Homes and Gardens.”

“Mama was featured in it seven years ago.” Sam sounded proud as he put on the parking brake.

“Whoa…”

“Just try to have a good time.”

“I’m already composing the part in my diary where I talk about how I hoped I made a good impression. Just… if I don’t remember to tell you when you drop me back off at my place, I had a great time, Sammy.”

“You haven’t met my crazy family yet,” Sam warned him.

“I know I’ll have a great time, Wilson.”

“C’mon, now. We talked about pet names.”

“Okay, Sugar Bear.”

“Okay, _Sunshine Bear._

Bucky snerked as he got out of the car. Okay. He got him pretty good.

Sam met him around the side of the car with a hand at the small of his back again, and Bucky didn’t want to admit that he was starting to like that. They climbed the steps together, and by the time Sam reached down to open the front door, he already had his fingers laced through Bucky’s, in a comfortably snug grip. Bucky felt himself flush again. _It’s just Wilson. We’re just playing around. Calm down, Barnes._ But his face pulled itself into an easy, relaxed smile as the occupants of the living room greeted them.

“Well, look who just showed up! There’s my favorite nephew! Gimme some sugar!”

“Give her some sugar, Sugar Bear,” Bucky murmured.

“I will punch your lights out, smart guy,” Sam promised through his teeth, but he was grinning and hurrying forward to kiss his auntie’s cheek. “You look jazzy, Auntie.”

“This takes more work than you think,” she assured him as she preened and patted her hair. She winked at Bucky and asked Sam, “And this is?”

“This is my _date_,” Sam pronounced, and there was that hand at Bucky’s back again. Bucky, of course, heard _This is my immunity from y’all asking me when I’m planning to settle down for the rest of the night._

“Goodness gracious, aren’t you a pretty thing,” Sam’s aunt Zelda pronounced.

“Child, you could be a model,” his auntie Mabel agreed. “Sam, did you two meet on one of those dating sites? If so, you have to tell me which one.”

Bucky’s nose scrunched in amusement, and Sam just shook his head.

“We met at work.”

“Well, that won’t work for me at all.”

“You won’t find a man like this on Tinder, anyway,” Darlene mentioned coyly from the kitchen doorway. She was stirring mayonnaise into a large bowl of potato salad with a wooden spoon. Sam dutifully met her there and kissed her cheek with a loud smack. “Got here just in time to not have to set the table.”

“Are you telling me I’m late?” Sam accused.

“No. Just that you’re just in time for being the last ones here. Pull up a chair.”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“You made it here, and you brought me a new victim… I mean, guest! How are you, sweetheart?”

“Fine, thank you, Mrs. Wilson.”

“Call me Darlene. I’m the light of my son’s life. You can call me that, too.”

“Delighted.” Bucky shook her hand warmly, and she summed him up with a glance.

“Okay,” she pronounced, pleased. She had her son’s long-lashed, twinkling eyes and high cheekbones when she smiled, and her figure was curvy and robust. Sam inherited her smooth, dark complexion, and she moved like him, like she owned the room.

“Mama, this is Bucky.”

“Bucky?” She raised her brows and huffed. “That’s… different.”

“Short for Buchanan, which is my middle name. My sister called me that growing up.”

“Oh, that’s cute!”

“She’s nicer than me. I called Sam ‘Lugnut.’ Or a pain in the booty,” bragged a young woman standing by the refrigerator who was pulling out the bowls of jello salad and deviled eggs. 

“Pay no attention to her. I’m Mama’s favorite.”

“He’s mistaken is what he is. Hi. I’m Sarah, Mama’s _real_ favorite.” She and Sam tried to elbow each other out of the way and had a mock slap fight for a few moments before Sarah succeeded in shaking Bucky’s hand.

“Will you go find something else to do!”

Sarah thumbed her nose at him, turned around, and waggled her backside in Sam’s general direction.

“I’ve raised heathens,” Darlene told the room. “Absolute heathens. Y’all don’t know how to act in front of company. Paul, come and get these children of yours!”

“How come they’re always my children when they’re acting up?”

The next twenty minutes found Sam giving Bucky a grand tour of the house and backyard and practically passing him around for handshakes and perfumed hugs. Every woman in the house looked like she stepped out of the salon that afternoon. More Stevie Wonder drifted from the stereo speakers, followed soon by Etta James and Miles Davis. Amazing aromas wafted from the kitchen, and Bucky grinned at the spread on the main table.

“You weren’t kidding about the food.”

“Mama was up half the night marinating the meat and making the sides,” Sarah mentioned. “I must have peeled at least five dozen boiled eggs.”

“Better you than me,” Sam joked, and he ducked when she brandished her hand to swat him.

“Sam knows how to cook, too. He’s just lazy,” she told Bucky. “You’re on pie duty next time.”

“You can bake a pie?”

Sam preened. “I can.”

“You’re an absolute failure about even rinsing out your coffee cup in the break room,” Bucky accused. Sam gave him a little shove.

“I can bake, but just for that, no pie for you.”

“I’ll sneak you a piece,” Sarah promised under her breath to Bucky.

They bumped fists, and Bucky gave her a wink.

“I saw that,” Sam claimed.

“Saw what?”

“You didn’t see anything! There was nothing to see!”

Sam and Bucky managed to snag two metal folding chairs at one of the card tables out in the back yard before they disappeared, and Sam returned to the table with two plates loaded high with food.

“This is so much better than Jess and Carol’s party,” Bucky mused, hating to be disloyal, but the spare ribs alone were making his mouth water.

“Right?” Sam muttered as he took a forkful of the barbecue baked beans. “I know you miss your Taylor Swift right about now.”

“I’ll manage to console myself with this potato salad.” And it was fantastic. Just the right ratio of mayo to mustard, perfectly cooked red potatoes, and seasoned just right. Every bite of food was _amazing_.

They sat bumped closely, comfortably together as they ate and made small talk with all the aunts and cousins. Bucky laughed when one of Sam’s nieces asked him if he ever made ponytails with his long hair. 

“Sometimes, he puts ribbons in it,” Sam teased. Bucky snorted into his glass of lemonade and kicked Sam under the table.

It was nice. All of it was nice.

Up to a point.

Sam asked Bucky, “Hey. Want any of that peach cobbler that was on the stove? I know Mama’s hiding some vanilla ice cream in the freezer, too.”

“I’m not gonna be able to move.”

“So, that’s a no?”

“Hell, no. That’s a _yes_.”

“That’s what I thought.” Sam got up and took their paper plates back to the kitchen to throw them out, but he managed to walk in on the tail end of a discussion happening in the dining room.

“Well, that was quick. I thought he would have waited a little longer.”

“Best way to get over an old man is to get _under_ a new one,” Zelda teased.

“Don’t be nasty,” Mabel told her. 

“It’s my son’s business if he’s ready to date again,” Darlene mentioned. 

“He said he met this one at work?”

“Wonder what he does for work?”

“I wonder if he went to school?”

Sam felt his cheeks heat up and his scalp itched. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath. His aunts were about to grill poor Barnes like a flounder…

He decided to intervene. “Need any help, Ma?”

“There he is,” Darlene greeted. She hugged him with one arm while she turned off the stove. “Is your friend having a good time?”

“I kept trying to ask him, but his mouth was full every time he tried to answer.”

“That’s what I like to hear, baby.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “You look happy.”

“How couldn’t I be? I’m at home.”

“No. You have a glow. This is you, glowing. It’s nice to see you looking like this. Is he being good to you?”

Sam paused. _Shit. Okay._ He decided to roll with it. “Yeah. Actually, he is. He really is. Bar- uh, Bucky is really nice. We’re just having fun.”

“Well, then, have fun,” she told him.

“Do we have any ice cream to go with the cobbler?”

“Did you hear that, Zelda? Did my son just ask me if I have ice cream?”

“Lord… you know your mother didn’t forget ice cream to go with her famous cobbler. Shame on you, Samuel. Smack your own mouth. Smack it!”

Sam hugged his mother and kissed her cheek. “Please don’t let them grill him,” he whispered into her ear.

“Not before I get my turn,” she promised solemnly.

Sam sighed, hung his shoulders in mock defeat, and headed to the freezer.

*

They stayed until after dark and gradually made their way back inside, just as Paul lit the citronella candles around the deck to keep away the mosquitoes. Sam and Bucky were drowsy, full to bursting, and pleasantly limp. True to form, the aunts grilled Bucky so hard that they could have stuck a thermometer in him and called him medium rare. To Sam’s surprise, Bucky took it all in stride, bashful by turns but also polite. Funny. Bright. He was the perfect houseguest and helped Sam clear the tables, put away the food, and wash the dishes when his sister punted him into the kitchen to “do his share.”

“This was fun,” Bucky murmured as he covered the last of the jello salad with cling wrap.

“It went well,” Sam offered. Bucky huffed, not sure what to think of how Sam worded that.

“Maybe next time you can show up early enough to help,” Sarah suggested. “Were the two of y’all messing around before you came?”

“Mind your business,” Sam told her crisply.

“I guess that’s a yes?”

“I guess someone wants an ass whuppin’...”

Sarah held up her hands and backed off. Bucky blushed and ducked his head, pretending that the macaroni salad was suddenly very interesting, but he was biting his lip.

Sam was getting unwelcome ideas about that lip, rosy, plump and full as Bucky worried it with the edge of his teeth.

“Mmph,” Sarah hummed, and she rolled her eyes at the two of them before she wandered off.

When she left, Sam bumped Bucky’s shoulder with his. “Hey. Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah. I really did.”

Sam beamed, and he shyly kissed Bucky’s cheek. Bucky flushed again, and he noticed Darlene giving them the eye from the dining room table. _Right._ Okay.

Okay.

*

Bucky felt pensive, and his thoughts were a noisy jumble rolling around in his head.

“Was that okay tonight, Sam?”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah. It was fine. That definitely threw Mama off the scent for a while.”

“Glad to oblige.” Bucky smiled at him, but then his eyes flicked away, back toward the passenger window, and he scrubbed his face with his palm.

“Tired?” Sam inquired.

“Bushed. Stuffed. I could sleep for a week. Everything was _so good_.”

Sam looked proud as punch. “Told you.”

“Is it okay if I ask how long you were with T’Challa?”

“No.”

Bucky scowled, but Sam gave him a little shove. “I can’t kid around with you? Okay. A year and a half. And before you ask, he called it off. And I’m still not really over him, despite my stoic facade.”

“I didn’t think you were over him. Wouldn’t judge you, either way.”

Sam shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.

“Well, I wouldn’t.”

“Eh.”

As if on cue, Sam’s phone piped “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” through the speakers, and Sam gave Bucky a sly look before he began to croon along.

“Oh, dear God, no,” Bucky moaned.

“..._you are the apple of my eye…_”

“Please, make it stop…”

They pulled into Bucky’s parking lot, and Sam walked him up to the door, again. “I need to walk off some of this food,” he explained easily enough. Bucky still felt a pleasant little thrill in his gut.

“The drive home is gonna be lonely without me, punk.”

“I’ll be heartbroken. I don’t know how I’ll find my way,” Sam scoffed.

But. _But_.

They were there again, at the door. Bucky paused as he dug his key out of his pocket and turned to Sam.

Warm fingers caught Bucky’s and squeezed them, and Bucky didn’t hesitate this time when Sam leaned in.

Soft, warm and lingering. Bucky’s pulse quickened and he heard a loud rushing in his ears. God, Sam Wilson could kiss.

Even if it was just practice.

“Just practice,” Sam murmured. His eyes gave nothing away, but he sounded pleased with himself.

“Practice makes perfect,” Bucky agreed, and he reached up and cupped Sam’s nape. Sam chuckled in surprise as Bucky leaned in and kissed him again. He felt the light, faint scratch of his blunt nails combing through his hair and heard his breathing change, just a little hitch, and that did things to Sam’s insides. Sam’s hand crept to Bucky’s hip, testing the solid, hard feel of it as Bucky tilted his face and teased the seam of his lips with his tongue. Sam opened for him, letting that hot, satiny caress happen, and when they parted, they shared a smirk.

“If you’d done that in front of my aunts, they would have fallen out.”

“See you back at work.”

*

Back at work, Sam snapped at Bucky for calling him repeatedly when he was in an isolation room and couldn’t answer his phone.

Okay. Back to business as usual.

It was a long night of bed alarms and combative behavior. The floor was at high census, and Bucky was knackered and frustrated, nearly barking his replies into the call light phone even after two strong cups of coffee and half an energy drink. By the time Steve showed up to relieve him, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Bucky hopped up from his chair and shoved it at Steve.

“Here. Take the helm. I’ve had enough for the past twelve hours.”

“That fun, huh?” Steve’s smile was smug and knowing. “That’s why I switched to days, pal.”

“Yeah, yeah. Quit giving me that shit-eating grin. You think you’re so great because you get actual _sleep_.”

Steve reached up and gave Bucky’s shoulder a little squeeze. “They’re hiring at Transitional Skilled.”

“Nah. Fuck that.” Bucky wasn’t desperate enough to apply for the hospital’s SNF unit. It was like No Man’s Land over there and far too quiet and remote for Bucky’s taste.

“Hey, Clint took me to that donut place you like this morning. I got you a cinnamon roll.”

“Ooh.”

“Go grab it. You can give me report once you eat it.”

“I could kiss you.”

“Clint might take issue with that.”

“Clint can take a picture of that.”

Steve snickered.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bucky headed to the kitchen, where he found Sam sitting with his feet up at the table, looking exhausted and watching CNN. He was gulping ice water out of one of the white pitcher liner cups, and he looked up when Bucky came in and perused the donut box, looking for the promised roll.

“Hey. Barnes. Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you, man. I didn’t mean it.”

“S’okay. You were busy. I can’t always read minds when I go to call you and automatically know where you are, but I can kinda guess by looking at my screen, when I see your light on, so it’s my fault that I didn’t check. Sorry, Sammy.”

“I still shouldn’t have snapped. Hope I didn’t sound like too much of a dick.”

Bucky gave his shoulder a fond shove. Sam gave him back a tired smile.

“We’re good. Hey, want half of this?”

“Uh-uh. Enjoy it. It’s your favorite, Barnes.”

“It’s your favorite, too.” Bucky unwound a long strip of the sweet, glazed bread and shoved it at him. Sam grudgingly took it and crammed half of it into his mouth, sighing.

“Last night was the night from hell.”

“You’re preaching to the choir.”

“Hey. There’s this thing this weekend.”

“What thing?”

“A thing. My high school reunion.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Just my ten-year. It’s been sitting there on my Facebook for months, and I only just realized it’s this weekend.”

“You gonna go?”

“Maybe if I don’t have to go alone?” Sam suggested, testing the waters.

“Wait… you want me to go with you?”

“Are you doing anything else?”

“No. Pffffttt… my ass was just gonna be glued to the couch for more ‘Office’ reruns, and I have a hot date with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.”

“I’m not a hotter date than that?”

Bucky shrugged and held up his thumb and forefinger, with very little space in between. “Maybe if you wear that orange shirt, again…”

“My competition is a tub of ice cream,” Sam muttered. “You’re bad for a man’s ego, Barnes.”

“Shut up. What time are you picking me up?”

Sam brightened. “You’ll go?”

“We can make an appearance. They’ll play some Black Eyed Peas and Maroon 5? Unhosted bar and a buffet?”

“Sounds about right.”

“And I can grab your ass on the dance floor.”

“That’s pushing it a little far. That seems a little too high on your agenda, Barnes.”

“Hey. A guy can dream, right?”

“Keep on dreaming, Sunshine Bear. Seven. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

*

Sam received a text from Bucky on his night off.

_Sorry for the SOS. I need your baking skills. And your actual body._

Sam grinned in the dark and texted back a reply once he got settled under the covers. _What do you need me to bake?_

Bucky sent back, _An apple pie. Mom said I can get one at Costco, but then I remembered that you baked. I also remembered that Mom said I can bring a plus-one to this dinner at her professor’s house._ There was a pause in his typing, and then, _She invited Brock, before._

Sam texted back, _Say no more. Apple it is._

They canoodled at the dinner table that night, holding hands and joking about the modern art sculptures in the entryway over the tomato bisque. Sam’s pie, and Sam himself, were both a hit.

They both conceded hunger once the affair was over and stopped for pizza that they ended up sharing by the dock, enjoying the sight of the boats’ lights as they sailed through the dark harbor. 

A week later, Bucky nagged Sam to review the diet list and chased him down for his work phone following a shift that left them both cranky and cutting their eyes at each other. 

“Can’t you float him to Neurotrauma?” Bucky asked Nick.

“That’s not how Staffing works, Barnes.”

*

_I need some help being petty._

Bucky grinned down at his phone and set down the dumbbells.

_How petty are we talking, Puddin’?_

Sam sent back a laughing emoji with fat tears in the eyes. _My once-future sister in law is here talking shit. She trapped me here at the cafe. The one where we got the cinnamon twists and really good chai lattes last week._

Bucky remembered. They’d gone there for the simple fact that Brock’s boyfriend, Jack, worked there, and knew he’d give Brock an earful about the two of them hamming it up and the _totally unnecessary and excessive_ PDA they’d indulged in as they stood in line.

_Is she gonna be there for a while?_ Bucky didn’t think he’d have time to shower.

_She isn’t taking the hint. I’ve dropped about ten of ‘em so far._

Bucky decided he wouldn’t worry about the shower. He grabbed his water bottle, phone and keys and hustled out of the gym, nodding at the girl behind the counter on the way out. Bucky hopped jogged down the block toward the subway entrance and dug his fare card out of his pocket, feeling guilty about how sweaty and - probably - fragrant he was in a closed space. His reflection in the mirror showed him in a sweat-stained shirt, skin gleaming and face flushed, and his careful ponytail from that morning devolved into “Instagram messy” after his four-mile jog on the treadmill and hour and a half in the weight room. He looked wrecked and disheveled, and he hoped Sam appreciated the favor. He certainly planned to give him shit about it.

Bucky emerged onto the busy street and jogged the rest of the way to the cafe, where he found Sam sitting outside at a tiny table, flanked by a slender, lovely girl with piles of braids on her head and ornate jewelry made of shells. Bucky heard her speaking with an intriguing accent and gesticulating with long-fingered, graceful hands.

“My brother said he’s working on a new thesis on thermodynamics. It’s just as well that you didn’t go with him, Sam. He doesn’t need the distraction right now.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” Sam agreed, sounding bored. His jaw was propped on his hand and his smile was tight. Bucky recognized that look and always feared for the recipient, but she was nonplussed.

“You’re looking puny, Sam. Someone hasn’t been feeding you since T’Challa left the country.”

“I’m just wasting away.”

“No. He’s just staying busy,” Bucky interjected. He hopped the twisted iron railings surrounding the seating area, and Sam grinned up at him, taking in his appearance. Bucky relished his sweaty state as he plopped himself down on Sam’s lap, leaned down, and gave him a kiss that, in hindsight, was a little gratuitous. His arm coiled around Sam’s neck, and he felt Sam’s palm skim over his waist, fingers splayed and tugging on the hem of his loose tank top.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Sam crooned up at him.

“Hey, Sugar.”

Sams’s eyes were hazy and coy.

His companion’s narrowed. “Busy? You’ve been staying… _busy._” She sat back and folded her arms.

“S’what the man said. Oh, Shuri. This is Bucky.” He didn’t look back at Shuri. “He’s been doing a great job of distracting _me_.”

Bucky gave him a hurt look. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing. Like I’m wasting your time.”

“Uh-uh. No, no, no,” Sam tutted. “Don’t go fishing, look at you, fishing for me to tell you that you’re never a waste of my time-”

“Is it working?”

“You’re exactly how I like to spend my time.” Sam’s fingers skimmed over Bucky’s thigh, and he gave Bucky a lip-nipping kiss. Bucky felt himself go up in flames. Okay. Wilson was laying it on a little thick. 

“Then it’s working,” Bucky murmured.

Sam watched those blue-gray eyes dilate, and he licked the taste of Bucky from his lips, an automatic reflex. _Damn._ He felt himself go hard as a rock as Bucky shifted himself in his lap. “I haven’t ordered you anything yet,” Sam confessed.

“Then it won’t get cold,” Bucky shrugged.

“Oh. I didn’t know you were waiting for company,” Shuri offered. She stood up immediately and tugged her purse up onto her shoulder. “You probably want this seat.”

“Not yet,” Bucky assured her. He smiled beatifically. Sam squeezed his knee. He felt the other patrons of the cafe staring and didn’t give a damn.

“Well. I’ve got to meet Mother. Bucky. It’s a pleasure.” She leaned over and shook his hand; Bucky knew it was rude not to stand to return the gesture, but he had to play up their ruse for all it was worth.

And Sam’s lap was comfortable. He was loath to get up.

She rushed off. “She left you holding the tab,” Bucky commented dryly.

“That might have been the goal,” Sam shrugged. “Damn. You don’t skip leg day.”

“Gotta get those thighs of betrayal,” Bucky told him simply. Sam’s fingertips were still skimming over his spandex-encased thigh, giving him little thrills. They were dangerously close to his crotch. Bucky rose reluctantly and took Shuri’s vacated seat. “What’s good today?”

“Oh, maybe the chai. And the almost sister-in-law who got an eyeful. Oh, and the tuna melt. Try that.”

*

Bucky reviewed his schedule online and noticed he wasn’t working with Sam for the next several months. “Hey. Where’s Wilson this week?”

“He didn’t mention that he’s preceptoring in Pedes?” Natasha told him, craning her neck around to smirk at him. “He’s working on his certification.”

“Wow.” 

“Yeah. Because he’s gotta make the rest of us look bad and be certified in every speciality,” Tony agreed as he took a generous gulp of his Dutch Bros. Golden Eagle latte. 

“That’s more stress than I’m willing to deal with,” Bruce admitted. “I love kids, but I can’t deal with the parents. He’s braver than me.”

“Says the guy who used to be a circulator in OR for eight years,” Natasha reminded him. 

“I’ll take getting yelled at by a surgeon any day over getting yelled at by a mom whose kid has RSV.”

Bucky sighed and went back to booking his work days on the spreadsheet and checking his emails. Well. That. That was awesome, but. It kinda sucked. For him.

HIs work night went smoothly enough, but he missed Sam’s snark and the way he used to hum to himself when he was in the med room, or the way he would suck the tip of his pen while he would review his charting. 

And, okay. Sam needed his time to study, so that meant no more “fake dates” for a while. Or. Realistically.

Maybe no more of them at all. Sam could end up moving to Pedes. Or, if he was being certified, maybe he was planning a move to another, bigger acute care center with a stronger focus in pediatrics. Bucky prepared himself for that possibility, and the more he thought about it, the darker his mood grew.

Time to just suck it up. It was fun while it lasted.

*

Three weeks later, Steve texted him.

_Clint told me about a speed-dating night at the Red Lion. Next Saturday. Not this one, but the next. You’re off that night? Right?_

Bucky groaned aloud.

_I don’t know if I’m up for it._

It just sounded like work. Bucky wasn’t sure he was in the mood for small talk with strangers outside of work. 

_What are you guys doing that night?_

Steve sent back a sad-faced emoji. _Going out of town. Why? You wanted to hang out?_

Bucky sent back a little figure shrugging. _Yeah. Would have been nice. I just don’t know about the speed-dating._

_It might help you to get back out there. You’re over Brock._

Yeah, but. He wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with his feelings for Sam yet, was he?

Because, these were feelings he was having for Sam? Right? 

The kisses that were “just for practice” were becoming more frequent and harder to dismiss. The casual touches didn’t feel so casual anymore, and it was getting harder to say goodnight at Bucky’s door, or at Sam’s that time that Bucky came over and helped him unclog his sink. Bucky finally got the opportunity to grab Sam’s ass on the dance floor when they went to Kitty’s studio for a ballroom dance class to give her support in her side venture. She said her clientele doubled after the two of them showed up to cut a rug. The fox trot ended up being more fun than Bucky had bargained for; they teased each other and hammed it up for every song, and Sam had yelped at the feel of Bucky’s playful grip of his butt. 

“Hey! Move that hand a little north, Barnes!”

“It slipped!”

Kitty bowed her face into her hands, and her shoulders shook.

Sam had offered Bucky more excuses to get out of the house and get out of his own head after Brock. It was getting to the point where, well. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t about forgetting Brock Rumlow anymore, and it was about discovering Sam Wilson.

Nah.

Ridiculous. Bucky was being ridiculous. Sam was getting the same thing out of… whatever this was that Buck was. Wasn’t he? A convenient date that wasn’t quite a date when he needed one. And kisses. And maybe a little public groping. And not-so-public groping on those occasions when they got a little carried away. 

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered under his breath. _Fuck._

If Sam was planning to leave him, then what was the point of getting attached? 

Bucky thought back to those first nights after Brock told him it was over. Endless. Lonely. Dark. Suffocating. Restless. He ran every bad moment between them back on a slow reel. It left a bitter taste in Bucky’s mouth. He couldn’t do this again. 

He tentatively told Steve “maybe” about the speed dating, knowing it would be a disaster, but at least it would offer a distraction from what he really wanted, but knew he couldn’t have.

*

Sam set down his text book and took a bite of his bacon, chicken and avocado sandwich. His apartment felt oppressive and messy. He hadn’t cleaned it in who only knew how long, and he felt frustrated. And lonely, goddammit.

The unit secretary, Billy, was chipper and pert and never gave Sam shit. Sam was going through withdrawals. Kid always seemed to have a sixth sense for when Sam was passing a med or in an isolation room and called team lead or had Nick take report for Sam’s incoming admits. Sam missed Bucky’s bland tone on the other end of the line and the way he would stare at Sam’s butt when he pretended he wasn’t looking.

T’Challa tagged him on one of his Facebook memories showing a picture of the two of them in Mali, enjoying fruity drinks and canoodling in front of a sunset. Sam wondered why. Was he wistful? Did he miss Sam? Or was he doing it for spite after talking to his sister?

_Me and my boo during happier times._ Excuse Sam for feeling a little huffy when he read that caption. Sam wasn’t the one breaking off what they had before the tiramisu reached the table.

Once in a while, on a whim, Sam peeked at traveling nurse opportunities that would take him out of the state, and occasionally, out of the country. But he savagely reminded himself that he wouldn’t consider moving to follow T’Challa even if the opportunity reared its head. Closing the physical gap between them wouldn’t heal the emotional rift, would it?

_Hell to the no._

The Bast Memorial Medical Center of Wakanda had an opening for a Pediatric BSN. Sam contemplated applying for it, then deleted the alert message in his inbox. Nah.

Sam crammed well into the night, studying until his eyes blurred. Lather, rinse, repeat.

He spent the next few days studying, job shadowing, surfacing from his apartment only long enough to get takeout or take his morning job, and missing Bucky more than air.

*

It hit Bucky that they were going to need to break up, even though they weren’t really dating. Becca invited them to a bowling night, and Bucky longed to go, but it wouldn’t be any fun without Sam. And he’d feel like a third wheel without a “plus one.” Even if it was just bowling. Well, couples bowling, when you considered that Becca’s boyfriend, Mark, was going too. And future invitations from his family were going to naturally include Sam. Bucky didn’t know how soon he could do the whole “Something came up, and he couldn’t make it” excuse again the way he had for those first few weeks before he admitted to his family that Brock broke off the engagement.

Just the thought of it got his blood pressure up several points and made Bucky cranky. Shit. It wasn’t like it would even phase Wilson. He could find himself someone else to fake-date, or date-date, right? Probably at the drop of a hat, because it was _Wilson_. Why even worry about it?

It was just… it felt wrong. It felt so fucking wrong.

Which was why it blindsided him when Sam called him at random and invited him over for dinner.

His phone rang, cutting off his Spotify list stream while he was mid-rep. Bucky swiped right to accept the call instead of ignoring it when Sam’s contact photo flashed onscreen; he’d snapped it while Sam was driving, just to annoy him. 

“Hey. What’re you doing right now, Sunshine?”

“That never gets old at _all_.”

Sam’s chuckle was raspy and husky with exhaustion. The sound made lust kick in Bucky’s gut.

“Up to anything?”

“No good. Just working out and sweating like a pig.”

“Mmmmm. Promise me you’ll shower first before you sit on my lap again, Barnes. You were ripe last time.”

“You didn’t mind.”

“And by ‘ripe,’ I mean you smelled like a three-day old wildebeest carcass.”

“Some people consider that sexy.”

“The look of the sweat, Barnes. Not the aroma.”

“Can’t lie to me. You were digging it.”

“So what time do you wanna come over and eat? I’m getting sick of staring at these textbooks and all four of these popcorn-textured walls and need some human contact. I’m making my famous roasted chicken and cornbread.”

“Yeah. About that.”

Bucky braced himself. Hated himself in that moment.

“About what?” Sam’s voice held a note of caution.

“We probably already gave enough people the impression that we’re over our exes by now,” Bucky suggested. “And you’ve been really busy. And you probably wanna actually date someone for real by now, right? I mean, Steve’s already asking me about when I’m gonna get myself back ‘out there.’” Bucky’s voice put little air quotes around that term. “He wants me to go to this speed-dating thing-”

Sam’s scalp crawled and felt too tight, too hot. “So, what? What’s the deal, Barnes? What are you saying? Are we breaking up?”

“Only if it’s okay with you. Because this was just… us playing around. Right?”

“Right. You’re absolutely right,” Sam told him without pause.

Bucky’s stomach dropped into his shoes at how flippant he sounded. He forced a smile into his tone.

“I should probably let you study. Hey, Sam. You can tell people whatever you want what how we… you know. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Oh, you will? That’s generous of you, James.”

Oh, he’d been first-named. Bucky scrubbed his face with his palm.

“See you.” Bucky rang off and immediately felt like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack.

Sam threw his phone across the room and kicked the refrigerator door. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled all of the air in his lungs. “Okay,” he muttered. “Fine, then.”

He so wasn’t okay. Not by any goddamned stretch.

*

The bell rang again, and James picked up his table card and moved it along toward the seat at the next table. He nodded and smiled at Roberto, a young man with a Portuguese accent wearing his shirt half-unbuttoned and lots of gold hoops in his ear. 

“That’s a nice shirt.”

“_Obrigado_,” he returned easily. “It was a gift.”

“I go by Bucky.”

“Okay. I thought we were using our real names?”

_Jesus._ “We, uh. We are. That’s my name.”

“Oh.” Roberto looked less than impressed. “So. What do you do?”

“I work at the hospital on the Oncology floor.”

He brightened. “Oh. Nurse?”

“Uh. No.”

“CNA?”

“No. I’m just a secretary.”

“That’s. Nice.”

Bucky wished like hell that the bell would ring and that he could move on. Even if he had to make the ding noise himself.

Roberto looked down at the little card of suggested conversation starters and randomly picked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Orange.” Because Sam had made it work, he didn’t add.

“That’s never anyone’s favorite color,” Roberto accused.

“Yeah. Well. That’s just me, I guess. What’s yours?”

“Forest green,” he told him haughtily.

“I’d have guessed that about you,” Bucky said simply.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. You just. Look. Like you like. Green.”

Bucky took a gulp of his water and wished he could sink into the floor.

He wondered if someone had swapped it for a clear malt for a minute when he thought he heard Sam’s voice across the room, from the reception counter. No. It couldn’t be-

“...excuse me, I’m looking for my friend. That’s fine, I know it’s a closed event, I can buy a ticket. You already have an even number of guests?”

Bucky felt himself flush all the way up to his ears. There was Sam and James, one of Sam’s best friends from day shift and who worked in ER. He caught Bucky’s eye and nodded to him before nudging Sam. Sam looked up from his discussion with the receptionist, and beckoned to Bucky’s general direction.

“I see him. Look, I’ll buy the ticket, but there’s something I need to do.”

*

Sam saw him sitting there, handsome in an all-black suit, clean-shaven and slick, already looking charmingly bored. Sam watched his face shift to stunned surprise, then to an incredulous smile.

“Wilson? What’re you doing here?”

Sam strode over to him before his sense of reason could kick in, with Rhoades hot on his heels. The MC of the event conferred with the receptionist and watched them cautiously, both of them shrugging and looking confused.

“Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, Barnes. You told me I could do this however I wanted, right?” Sam reminded him.

Bucky’s words, meant to be Sam’s way out, haunted him now and made him a little sick. _Fuck._

“Sam, I-”

“I don’t think we were finished talking the last time you called me. And you were right about one thing. I’m over my ex. I’ve been over him for a while.”

Bucky’s heart started to pound, because people were beginning to stare, including My Favorite Color is Forest Green across the table from them, who was currently staring at Bucky and Sam with a raised brow, arm slung over the back of his chair.

“And you told me it was time for me to really date someone, and you were right about that, too. Thing is, I thought that was what we were doing. James Buchanan Barnes, you’ve been my favorite kind of distraction. You’re my reason for breathing. You’re my favorite part of every day, and you’re my _sunshine_.”

Bucky bit back a laugh.

Sam played it up for effect and sank down onto one knee, and Bucky clapped his hand over his mouth. Sam pried it away, reading all the questions in Bucky’s blue eyes. “Don’t hide from me. There’s that pretty smile.”

“Sam…!”

“I miss you. God, Bucky, I _miss_ you.”

God, this man was ridiculous. Bucky shook his head, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Sam’s grip tightened on his hand, and Sam felt Bucky’s pulse jump in his wrist. He stroked his knuckles with his thumb, a soft, too-welcome caress.

“I miss you, too,” Bucky confessed. “God, you’re an asshole…” But he was laughing, shaking his head, and his eyes were glistening. 

“True romance, right there,” James muttered, and to Bucky’s horror, he was _filming_ this on his phone. He told Bucky apologetically, “This is for posterity. I wasn’t even sure y’all were together until this morning. I’ll delete it if you want.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sam warned.

“Don’t,” Bucky agreed. “I need proof that this is happening, because I’m not sure this is happening. What’s happening?”

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.” 

Bucky’s mouth went dry, but his eyes felt hot, and Sam’s, to his surprise, were damp. Glistening. He was still gripping his hand snugly, and his smile was plaintive and affectionate.

“I might drive you crazy,” Bucky warned.

“So, what else is new?” Sam shrugged, and the other guests in the room were exchanging knowing glances and nervous smiles, and even a few looks of disappointment; the cutest guy in the room was off the market. Obviously. “Take the wheel. I want to go everywhere with you, baby doll.”

And it was killing Bucky, because this didn’t happen. His least favorite-until-recently-coworker who he was so fucking attracted to despite himself didn’t just come out and propose to him - _fake-propose_, he corrected himself - in a public place, and in the process save him from speed-dating hell in any sane universe. Bucky was dreaming. He _had_ to be hallucinating Sam in that gorgeous, periwinkle blue suit, platinum wristwatch and Italian loafers. He smelled like Burberry and his beard was neatly trimmed. Bucky wanted to take him home, strip him down and climb that man like a tree. And he was staring up at him expectantly, wanting Bucky to make the next move.

This was a dream. It had to be. Or a bluff. Who knew?

“Yes. Yes, Sam, I’ll marry you. Yes. All the yes. I love you.”

Was that his voice sounding so goddamned emotional, blurting out the words that Bucky feared ever leaving his mouth?

Sam’s eyes widened. He looked shaken, and Bucky almost felt sick. _Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck._

But Sam grabbed Bucky by the lapels and leaned up, kissing him hard. Bucky groaned into it, startled and immediately aroused. 

“Okay, y’all, just turn away, there’s nothing else to see here,” Rhoades announced as he waved off the crowd. “Okay,” he told his friends, “that’s enough of that.”

*

Bucky was still dazed when they left the lobby and walked out into the fading sunset, still holding hands. Sam felt his phone ping in his pocket.

“I owe Tony fifty bucks, Barnes. Thanks a lot. I thought this guy,” and he motioned to Sam, “wasn’t going to follow through, and that there was no way y’all were datin’. Way to prove me wrong and make me lose my beer money.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Sam muttered. Bucky snickered.

“You’re gonna hafta give me a minute.”

“Okay. That’s fine.” 

“What did we just do?”

“You ask that question _now_?” James accused, tsking at the loopy looks the two of them were giving each other. “You just made a spectacle.”

“It was fun,” Bucky murmured. Sam chuckled and kissed him, just because he could. Because they hadn’t had enough chances to practice, lately.

“Hey. I’m gonna get going. You two behave. Please. If it’s not asking too much.”

“Night, Rhodes.”

“Night, Jim.”

“Ugh. I don’t know about y’all. I don’t know you. Bye.” James waved them off in playful disgust, laughing on the way to his car.

*

Sam watched the video James sent him a third time while he was getting ready for bed. He’d already sent it to Bucky, who promised to send it to Steve to ensure that he never sent him to another speed dating event again. 

Bucky’s face. God, that face. The moment that he heard Sam ask him to marry him was burned into Sam’s consciousness. He never wanted to let it go.

*

He was ready to play it off the next day, but surprised himself by asking Bucky out to brunch. Bucky surprised him back, looking fresh as a spring day in a white sweater and light linen pants. He greeted Sam at the door with a kiss, a departure from their routine of saving it for goodbyes.

“Hey. Wanna do something fun?”

“Like what?”

“I might have sent the video to my sister. And Clint might have posted it to Facebook.”

Sam gaped.

Bucky snickered. “We’re engaged, buddy!”

“I kind of did it to mess with you-”

“I know that.” And it had taken Bucky the whole night of replaying it in his head. Reframing it. Trying to wrap his head around it. 

“I was a little mad at you. I might have been a little rash. We never really talked about how it was gonna pan out when one of us was ready to ‘move on.’” Sam made finger quotes. 

“You can dump me, next time, if you want. We can do a whole ‘War of the Roses’ act. Throw a few dishes?”

“I don’t think we have to make it that extreme, Barnes.”

“Good. Because I think we should register for some, instead. Let’s go to Target.”

Sam huffed. “Are you shitting me. You want to go to Target. So we can register for dishes and household items for-”

“For our fake engagement. Yes. C’mon, Sam. That’s half the fun of being engaged.”

“Good Lord. I’ve created a monster.”

“Hey, I was also thinking, we can book reservations to taste wedding cakes. And try out different caterers.”

“Barnes. _No_. That’s getting out of hand. There’s no way I’m going to go along with these shenanigans.”

*

“It’s my turn with the scanning gun. Give it here.” Sam made grabby hands for it, but Bucky snatched it back with a chiding look.

“Only if I get to register for the Snuggie.”

Sam’s expression flattened. “Barnes. No.”

“C’mon! I’ve been wanting one of those forever!”

“It’s just a backwards cape,” Sam argued. “Just buy yourself a cape and turn it backwards. Voila, a Snuggie.”

“That’s not the same.” Bucky scanned the ridiculous, pastel-colored horror.

“Bucky. It’s lavender. At least get the green one. Sheesh.”

“I like lavender.”

Sam rolled his eyes. They’d already been around the entire store, registering for so much crap that they didn’t need; both of them already had all of the household stuff accumulated from two broken engagements; Sam didn’t know what the point of registering at Tiffany’s had been when T’Challa could afford everything in the store himself, and Sam would never presume to ask anyone to buy him anything from their list at that damned store. Sam knew he’d never use the closet organizers, and the cushions Bucky picked out clashed with his living room, but it was fun. Bickering with Bucky over the home that they would probably never build together was a pleasant outlet from the stress of the past few weeks.

And it felt good to spend time with him, holding his hand as they perused the displays and shelves, adding things they didn’t need to the list.

“I would have loved half this stuff when I was still living in the dorms,” Bucky told him.

“I’m having flashbacks,” Sam admitted. “I can almost smell the men’s dorm showers just looking at these caddies.” Like sweaty feet, aftershave, and morning-after regret.

They returned the scanning gun to the customer service desk and Bucky picked up detergent, which he actually did need. 

“Now I can tell my sister I registered,” Bucky mused. “What else do you need to do today?”

“Study my ass off.”

“You can drop me off, and I’ll get out of your hair, then.”

“Not yet. I’m enjoying the daylight.” Sam reached across the console and took Bucky’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “And the company. We might as well pick up dinner.”

Sam was the one who registered for the invitation cards. Six packs of them.

“That might be the one thing our friends actually buy us,” Sam told him as he scanned the barcode. Bucky snickered.

“Probably so. No getting out of this now, pal.”

Sam wasn’t ready to tell him that he hoped like hell that there wasn’t.

*

Clint Barton knew where his priorities lay when it came to life changes amongst his circle of friends.

“So. Wilson, m’man. When’s the bachelor party?” 

Sam scowled up at Clint, who was spotting him and grinning from his vantage point of watching Sam sweat and press a fourth set. “Bachelor party?”

“Heck, yeah. I wanna come. It’s been forever since any of my friends tied the knot. I need an excuse to get shitfaced.”

“Then, go out and get shitfaced. Take Steve to get shitfaced with you.”

“That’s no fun. We can do that any time. I wanna get my special occasion drink on and watch you and Barnes make fools of yourselves all night.”

Sam shook his head and gestured for Clint to grip the bar. Sam grimaced and pressed, hissing out the counts between his teeth. The vinyl bench felt clammy beneath his back, and he was getting tired of staring up Clint’s nostrils. And of the smug assumptions.

“Can’t believe you guys are getting married. You’re not even living in sin yet.”

“Because that worked out so well for the two of us before now…”

“It works, sometimes. It’s working for me and Steve so far.”

“Yeah, well. That’s just duckie for you.”

“I mean. We’re thinking about taking the next step. I am, anyway.”

“So, go ahead and take it.”

“I’m not as brave as you. I know I talk a lot of shit, but I don’t deal with rejection well.”

Sam huffed, panting out “You think Rogers would reject you? Honestly? That man eats, breathes, and lives Clinton Francis Barton. You’re all he talks about, man. It’s… sickening,” he gasped as he pressed one more rep, arms shaking with the effort.

“Nice! Get it up, get it up, get it up!”

“Stop telling me to get it up!” Sam snickered. “People are gonna get the wrong idea… ‘bout you an’ me.”

“Or they might get the right idea.”

Sam finished his set and sat up, slumped and dragging the towel over his face and nape.

“C’mon. Let me plan it, then.”

“Plan what?”

“Your stag party. Sports bar or Harry’s?”

Sam shook his head, but he grinned. “I don’t even know if Barnes _wants_ a stag party.”

*

“Are you kidding, Wilson? Of _course_ I want a stag party! Tell him Harry’s. We can book the back room,”

Sam clapped his hand over his face and let it slide.

What had he just agreed to?

*

Sam’s pretend fiance was wearing an orange feather boa and plastic, faux ermine-trimmed crown with gaudy Lucite jewels. He wore a giant button pinned to his shirt that read “My Prince Has Come (And Tonight, He Will Come AGAIN)” and the shirt said “If Found, Return to Sam.”

Sam’s shirt read, “I am Sam.”

...how on earth was this life? 

“I can’t believe I’m indulging this.”

“Calm down. Have another hot wing, Puddin’.”

Sam never realized how many grown-ass adult friends they had between the two of them until Bucky created the Facebook invitation and tagged three dozen of them between their two lists.

“Gotta celebrate your certification. You’re officially a Pedes nurse,” Bucky reminded him slyly.

“Not yet,” Sam corrected him. “Still have to talk to Staffing.”

“But you did it,” Bucky insisted, and he tugged him close before they left, breaking with their tradition of saving the kisses for after the date and snogging with him before it even began, because apparently that was a thing they did, now. Bucky made it harder every time for the two of them to even walk out the door. Sam heard Bucky’s throaty laugh as he pulled him in, bumping them back against the wall, and he let him play for a minute, dawdling over the kiss and letting it drag on and on. Sam tried to pull back, but Bucky chased his lips for more.

That _was_ passion he felt flaring in his chest, making Sam overheat. Those were Bucky’s hands, framing his face as he stared back at him with glazed eyes. A little notch formed between his brows.

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re really doing this? A stag party?”

“It’s a night out, and you deserve it, no matter what the reason,” Bucky told him. “You finished your certificate. You did something for yourself that you really wanted for a long time and you worked your ass off. I’m so proud of you, Sugar Bear.”

Sam felt a funny wheeze in his chest. He played it off, though. “We have to wear these shirts?”

“Sure do.” Bucky’s blue eyes turned mischievous.

“These shirts could be grounds for a broken engagement, Barnes.”

“These shirts are a statement of our _undying love_. Remember when you told me to take the wheel?”

Sam’s nose scrunched, and he shook his head.

“You can’t take it back! You said it!” Bucky crowed. 

“I only said you could take the wheel,” Sam scoffed.

Bucky’s smile faltered. He released Sam and gave his shoulder an awkward pat, and Sam felt a frisson of panic.

What just happened?

*

Bucky replayed the night at the hotel on the Uber ride to Harry’s. Sam’s hand was clasped in his, but Bucky was practically hugging the door panel and staring out the window. Sam began to fret as he realized how he might have misstepped.

_He only said I could take the wheel when I said I’d drive him crazy._

_He never said he loved me. I told him that._

_Fuck._

Bucky wanted to cry.

*

Bucky began to loosen up as the night progressed.

Pool. Darts. Karaoke. Shuffleboard. Old school arcade games. Their group took up three tables in the back room, and Sam and Bucky held court, doing rounds of shots and consuming indecent amounts of hot wings and finger foods. 

Bucky threatened to get up and dance on the table.

“Settle down, Barnes. Do not - oh, good Lord. Get down from there.”

Bucky started shaking it, face flushed and eyes gleaming. Sam stared up at him through his fingers and tried to crawl under the table to hide, but Clint and Steve pulled him back up.

“You don’t wanna miss this,” Clint teased. 

Bucky took off the boa and began straddling it, running it suggestively between his legs like floss. Sam groaned, mortified and turned on in equal parts. Bucky did a little shimmy and sang along to Rihanna.

“...sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me!”

Clint was cheering him on and wolf-whistling from the pool table.

“Don’t encourage him,” Steve nagged.

“C’mon. Buckster’s got moves,” Clint argued. “He’s having fun. Let him have his fun. This is his big night.”

“Pffffft. Sure.” Steve leaned his butt against the edge of the pool table and folded his arms, looking worn around the edges. And doubtful.

“What?”

“We’re watching a train wreck about to happen.”

“No. We’re watching our buds having a good time. Sam proposed. They’re tying the knot. What could be better than that?”

“If Sam actually meant it,” Steve told him.

Clint’s beer hovered just shy of his lips. “Whaddya mean?”

Ten minutes later, Clint looked flummoxed. He just kept clutching at the back of his hair.

“Uh-uh. I don’t believe it. You’re yanking my dick, Steve.”

“Bucky admitted it to me back when I asked him what was going on between him and Sam. He finally fessed up when I asked him why he was such a downer once Sam wasn’t working on our floor anymore.”

“Bullshit. You can’t tell me that Sam isn’t fucking crazy about Bucky. Look at them.” Bucky was back down off the table - stumbled down, really, but Sam caught him, and Bucky was in the middle of giving him a lap dance. Bucky looped the boa playfully around Sam’s neck, and Sam spat out the bits of feathers, but he was laughing. Radiant. The two of them were handsy as hell.

“They did it to put on a show for their exes, and it worked, but then they didn’t know how to turn it off, Clint.”

“Who says they have to turn it off? Look, maybe that isn’t the ideal way to do things, but I’ve seen people get married for worse reasons than _that_. Fact is, Sam proposed. Bucky said yes. Which one of us is right about what’s going on here if we get an actual wedding invitation in the mail from these two?”

Steve looked flustered and annoyed. “Look, I want you to be right and me to be wrong! Bucky’s my best friend, and I love him, and I don’t want him to be hurt by this bullshit!”

Steve didn’t realize that he’d been shouting.

“Bucky doesn’t need his heart broken all over again if Sam decides not to go through with this!” Steve cried.

“Steve! Holy shit, man! Calm down!”

“People get married for worse reasons! _Sure!_” Steve threw up his hands and Clint saw the moment that all the shots of Fireball really took hold, to his regret. He tried to shush Steve again, because their friends were staring and setting down their darts and pool cues and wings as Steve got good and warmed up. “But at least some people fucking propose, instead of letting their boyfriend wait three years of living together and sharing a cable bill and folding laundry and taking the dog to the vet together and letting their boyfriend always be the big spoon and steal all the blankets just to toss them onto the floor in the middle of the night, for months on end, only to wonder if it’s ever going to happen, despite the fact that he says he loves him and that he fucking means it with all of his heart.” There was a little tremor in Steve’s voice that Clint didn’t want to believe that he’d put there. “Maybe Sam didn’t mean it. That’s fine. But at least he _did_ it.”

Clint felt the blood drain from his face. “Jesus, Steve… what?”

“You heard me,” Steve spat, and he took off his glasses and dashed the back of his hand over his eyes, now hot and wet.

“The whole bar heard you,” Bruce informed him. “Needed that off of your chest, Rogers?”

But they were distracted by Sam’s panicked shout.

“BUCKY!”

He stood there, staggering a little, dazed and upset and still clutching the tacky orange boa. The crown sat on the table beside a row of empty shot glasses, and Sam looked bewildered. And stricken.

He stared at Steve and threw up his hands. “Rogers. _Rogers_. What the _fuck_,” he roared.

“Sam, I- didn’t, didn’t mean-”

Sam held up his finger and shook his head. “Don’t. Just fucking don’t.” 

He tossed the boa aside and went after Bucky, who was pushing his way through the crowd toward the exit. He moved with desperate speed, not caring who he pissed off.

Bucky needed fresh air and a minute to process what just fucking happened.

He’d been laughing. Dancing. Drinking regrettable amounts of Fireball. Bucky had a date with the toilet bowl within the next couple of hours, but Sam was there, under his lap, grinning that wicked grin and showing his dimples, and hands were beginning to roam just shy of “safe for work,” and-

And then his best friend burst his bubble. _Maybe Sam didn’t mean it. But at least he did it._

Was it that obvious to everybody but Bucky that Sam didn’t mean it when he proposed? That they were just playing around? That this was all just a goddamned farce?

Bucky didn’t mean to catch feelings for Wilson. God, he didn’t, but it was fucking _inevitable_. How was he _not_ supposed to fall ass over teakettle for him? Bucky wasn’t made of stone. Wilson infuriated him and tested his goddamned patience and snarked at him and picked arguments with him about petty shit-

And he kissed him with so much sweet intensity,

And he was gentle,

And he listened to Bucky, really listened to him when he talked about his dreams for the future,

And he baked him a pie to take to his mom’s with almost zero notice,

And he called Bucky Sunshine Bear.

How was he not supposed to fall for Samuel Thomas Wilson. And how was he supposed to move on now that he knew Sam couldn’t possibly feel the same? How had Bucky been so blind?

It hit him that of course, he had just believed what he wanted to believe. They were having fun. They were playing around. And Bucky… well, Bucky had gotten carried away.

“Bucky! Bucky, wait! Please! Please, hold up! BUCKY!”

That was Sam, sounding breathless and ragged. Bucky turned to find Sam, still wearing the awful shirt, skin gleaming with clammy sweat. He caught Bucky’s wrist and doubled over, gasping. “Gimme a minute… please… _fuck_. Bucky, please…”

“We don’t have to do this anymore, Wilson. It’s okay. You… you just don’t.” Bucky pulled his wrist free and backed up. He shucked the t-shirt, not caring that it was cold as balls outside. He chucked it into a nearby garbage can, and Sam looked stricken.

“Don’t. Bucky, don’t…”

“It’s okay. I won’t make you go along with this. I don’t know why we let it go this long, Sam. I mean, what were we thinking?” Bucky’s words came out in misty gray puffs against the cold night air.

Bucky laughed, but the sound was bitter and wounded. Both of them stared each other down, eyes bloodshot and filled with confusion and denial.

“You won’t make me go along with it? I was the one who _suggested_ it,” Sam reminded him. “Remember, Sunshine? It was me. It was all me. _My idea_. My crazy, half-assed idea to help us both out.”

Bucky shook his head and tried to turn away, but Sam caught his wrist again, both of them this time, and he pushed himself into Bucky’s space. “Baby, please don’t go away mad. Please, listen to me. Don’t listen to Steve. He’s… he’s drunk.”

It was the pot calling the kettle black.

“Was he wrong, though?”

“Bucky!”

“Sam. Don’t lie to me. Please. I can’t… I can’t handle it if you...I don’t know. I don’t know what I want right now. I’m a mess, and I’m just… I wanna go home.”

Bucky pulled his wrist free and reached into his pocket for his phone.

“I’ll call you a ride. We’ll go together. We still need to talk.”

“No. We don’t, Sam. We really don’t. God, I fell for it myself. I did. I thought you might… I just, I wa-wanted… wanted it so…” Bucky was shaking his head, and his eyes were limpid and swimming, and the world around him felt like it was swimming, and Sam was staring at him with so many emotions that Bucky couldn’t trust himself to read.

Sam, in the meantime, was listening to the panicked jumble of thoughts and feelings rolling through his head. Bucky was trying to leave him behind. He’d just hit the button on his phone to book his ride, and he was here “ending it gently” and ripping Sam’s fucking heart out in the process.

“Bucky. We were having fun. I thought… we were having fun. There was nothing wrong with it. I don’t want you to- to go… please, don’t go, baby, please.” Sam felt himself getting sloppy. He was slurring, and Bucky was all huge, hurt eyes and blurry edges, and Sam realized he was crying himself. “Don’t leave me, sweetheart.”

“You’ll find another T’Challa. You’ll leave town and I’ll never see you again,” Bucky accused. “You can write your own ticket. You’re fucking perfect, and gorgeous, and smart. Sam, you’re so smart. You never really needed me…”

“The hell I don’t. Barnes. Listen to me. I don’t want another T’Challa. That’s not what I want at all. ” Sam’s hand felt hot on Bucky’s skin as he gripped his shoulder. Touched his face. That was his palm, cradling Bucky’s cheek. “I _do_ need you. I was telling you the truth when I said I missed you. When I needed you. When I got down on one knee.”

“That was a nice touch, wasn’t it?” Bucky scoffed. The sweat was cooling on his skin, and he was shivering, and it was so tempting to want to curl into Sam’s heat and listen to the soft pulse in his neck.

“I love you, and you don’t love me,” Bucky blurted out. 

Sam shook his head. “Who says I don’t?”

“You would have said you did, but you didn’t.”

“I never said I didn’t,” Sam argued.

“What?”

“You heard me.” Because in Sam’s mind, that was a perfectly logical, reasonable argument. 

“What are you saying, Wilson?”

“What do you think I’m saying?” Sam tried to kiss Bucky’ lips, but Bucky turned away, only letting him have his cheek. “Huh?” Sam kissed his cheek again, because fine, then, Bucky; be that way. “What do you think I’m saying?”

“You’re drunk.”

“So are you. So? It’s our night. We’re engaged,” Sam reminded him.

“No, we’re not. You never even bought me a ring.” Bucky’s laughter was ragged and hoarse. “Don’t worry about it, either. They were fooled without it, I guess, until Stevie filled ‘em in.”

“He shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t his call to make, and he was wrong.”

“No, he wasn’t. I broke down and told him. Because he’s my best friend, and I didn’t know where else to go, because…” Bucky’s voice trailed off, and he couldn’t look at Sam.

“Because?” Sam prompted hopefully. He was cradling Bucky’s face, smoothing back stray tendrils of his soft hair.

“Because I love you, and because this hurts. It hurts that you don’t love me back, Sam. This shit _fucking hurts_.” Sam felt his insides clench up at the repeated confession. _Bucky loved him._ Shit. He had to make this right.Ten thousand alarms went off in his head. _Don’t let him get away. Get it together, Wilson._

“Bucky… look. Give me a chance. I didn’t know things were going to be like this, with you. I didn’t know I’d - goddammit. Baby. Please. Just give me a chance. We need to talk about this. Don’t just walk away from me. Don’t leave me behind and tell me it’s for the best. You told me you loved me. You can’t do that and just walk away.”

“Why not? The show’s over. Right?”

And Sam knew he wasn’t going to win this argument. He was drunk. Bucky was drunk and upset, and things were too raw between them. “Maybe it stopped being a show a long time ago. God, what’s wrong with me? I messed this all up, baby.” Sam swiped at the tears on Bucky’s cheek. Bucky’s eyes pleaded with Sam, crystal blue and glittering, holding the merest spark of hope. “I wasn’t lying when I said I needed you. And I wasn’t playing around any of the times that I kissed you. Or touched you. I’m not playing around now. I’m not, baby. I wouldn’t play around with you. I know what it’s like to be played with. I’m not about that. I’m not, Bucky.”

Back inside the bar, Clint was holding Steve back at the table and urging him to drink some water.

“I need to go apologize to Bucky!”

“Not now. You can text him in the morning and test the waters. Or I will. But leave him alone.”

“I was such a dick… oh my God, Clint. Look what I did.”

Clint was kneeling down beside Steve, palm resting splayed over his knee. “Babe. Look. It’s… we’re gonna sit down and talk about this. Not about Bucky and Sam, but about you and me.”

Steve winced and covered his face with his hand, but Clint gave him a little shake.

“We’re gonna. Ain’t gonna let you get out of it.”

“I fucked up, didn’t I? I mean, no wonder you don’t…”

“No wonder I don’t, what?” Clint shrugged. “Ever think that maybe I was waiting for you to make the first move?”

“Well, did _you_ ever think that I might wish you’d get your head out of your ass and just ask me? Would it kill you? I don’t just want it to be ‘my idea.’ I feel like I had to kick my own ass getting you to notice me back when we got together, and sometimes, I need you to notice me first.”

“I did notice you first. “

“No, you didn’t.”

“Steve, I totally did. The first time we met, you picked me up off the floor. I got distracted when you were bending over and taking out the trash in the break room, because I was looking at your ass, and I slipped in that spill on the floor because I wasn’t looking where I was going. I had a thing for you right off the bat.”

“You didn’t go out with me for six months!”

“It took you that long to suggest it! And no matter what, I felt like I kept putting my foot in my mouth around you. I was crazy about you. I still am. You pour me the first cup of coffee every time you make a fresh pot, and you let me have the fluffy pillow every night when we get into bed. You make sure we have our hearing aids charged up and you always only order pineapple on one half of the pizza because you know I can’t stand it. I guess I just thought… y’know. The two of us, it was just a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ I didn’t know you wanted me to get mushy about it.”

“Oh, my God. You _asshole._” Steve looked appalled, and he threw up his hands, but Clint grinned up at him.

“Don’t you think I was a little afraid you’d say no?”

“You were afraid that I’d say no?” Steve scoffed.

Clint gave him a disarming, earnest look. “Yeah. I really was.” He pushed the glass of water at Steve again. “C’mon. Drink this. Please? Before we get to the part of you bein’ drunk where you start crying at the drop of a hat?”

“I’m not ‘mushy,’” Steve argued as he took the water and took several dutiful gulps. “I just want my boyfriend to get his head out of his ass and propose like -” Steve’s words died when Clint reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet box.

“Look. We’re gonna raincheck this. When you’re ready. When neither of us is drunk off our ass and it won’t be a shitshow. And I’m gonna give you the mushiest, treacly, sickening proposal of marriage, Steven Grant Rogers, but we’re gonna do it on a night where we haven’t just ruined your best friend’s stag party.”

*

Bucky and Sam argued until the Lyft driver showed up, and Sam told him “I’m taking you home. I want to make sure you make it safely to your front door.”

“Why? You don’t have to anymore.”

“Yes, I do. Why stop now?”

“Fine, then.”

“Fine, then.” Sam let Bucky climb into the back seat first and made sure he was buckled in. The driver said nothing about Bucky’s disheveled, shirtless state, their bloodshot eyes, or the way they sat rigidly away from each other. Sam watched Bucky for the entire ride, feeling so upset. 

They pulled into Bucky’s parking lot and Sam walked him upstairs, out of long habit. 

“You can go, now.”

“Once you’re inside,” Sam promised. “Quit rushing me off.”

“You don’t have to do this, Sam.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I want to. Maybe I don’t like you pushing me away before I’ve said my piece.”

“There’s nothing left to say.”

“There’s so much more to say, Barnes.”

Bucky shook his head and fished out his keys. He unlocked the door despondently, knowing that when Sam left him, it would no doubt be the last time, and the tears burned at the backs of his eyes all over again. 

“I can call you a Lyft when you’re ready.”

“I’m not ready. Get ready for bed. Drink some water.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worried about it.” Sam’s tone was soft but firm. Sam remained close, but his hand was gentle at Bucky’s back, and he didn’t try to push any further effort into kissing him, even though he longed for their earlier closeness and the feel of his smooth, feverish skin and the tangle of Bucky’s hair around his fingers. 

“What are you worried about?”

“That I’ll get this wrong.” They stepped inside Bucky’s apartment, and Bucky felt puzzled when Sam didn’t turn and leave.

“Get what wrong, Sam?”

“Telling you that I love you. And that I wasn’t joking when I asked you to marry me. And that maybe I was scared to death that you wouldn’t go for it when no one was looking.”

Bucky shuddered, and Sam watched a light come on in his limpid blue eyes. “Wilson. Don’t…”

“Do you only want me when there’s somebody watching? Is that the only time you want me to kiss you? Or to hold you?”

“You’re turning things around,” Bucky grated out. “You’re the one who wanted us to pretend.”

“Pretending isn’t what we’ve been doing, though, is it, Sunshine?”

Bucky threw up his hands and turned away from him, huffing a little. He raked his hand through his hair and gave Sam a weak little laugh. “I guess I wasn’t, after a while. I don’t know. I was scared, Sam. Okay? I was scared that… if I wanted this too much, it would end any minute. And that you wouldn’t go for it. I was enjoying myself, and the problem with me wanting things too much is that’s usually when everything goes to shit. Brock acted like he only asked me to marry him because I pushed him to do it. Like I was twisting his damned arm.” Bucky’s voice was bitter and hurt; Sam wanted to kick Brock’s ass for leaving that pain behind in Bucky’s eyes.

“His fucking loss, then. Tell him to move over.”

“You saw him. He’s long gone. He’s got a new fella, and here I am, letting you stand in for a real boyfriend so I don’t look like no one else wants me.”

“I’m standing right here, waiting for you to see me. I’m waiting for you to see what’s right in front of you, Bucky. I’m not ‘standing in.’ I’m yours, if you want me. Right now, when no one’s looking, or in front of a few dozen of our closest friends, or in front of my nosy aunts and cousins. I’m your man, James Buchanan Barnes.”

“I told you back when you proposed that I’d drive you crazy.” Another fat tear rolled down Bucky’s cheek, dripping onto his neck. His bare skin still felt chilled and clammy, and he felt vulnerable and raw, even as Sam told him all the things he’d wished for and dreamt about there in his living room. Bucky was still reeling from his earlier embarrassment, still caught in the fading buzz of the alcohol and processing that Sam chased him back here. Sam wanted to talk this out. Wanted to work this out.

And, if Bucky chose to believe him right now, he wanted Bucky. Really wanted him.

“You promise?”

Sam’s fingers felt so warm when they closed around Bucky’s shoulder, squeezing it. He gently tugged him back against him, and Sam’s arms coiled around his waist. Bucky sagged back against him, shuddering again at how good Sam felt. Sam rested his chin against the nook where Bucky’s shoulder joined his neck, and Bucky reached up and cupped Sam’s jaw. Just because he could.

“Yeah,” Bucky whispered hoarsely. “I do.”

Sam’s palms caressed his chilled skin, and his lips feathered tiny kisses down his trapezius, tickling him with the brush of his mustache, and Bucky felt his entire body respond and crave more.

“Plenty of folks want you, Barnes. One look into those deep blue eyes of yours, and you know where home is.”

Bucky expelled a breathy laugh, and he turned and kissed Sam’s temple. “You’re just laying it on thick, now.”

“I mean it. Don’t laugh.”

“You just… God, Sam.”

Sam was doing things with his mouth that should have been classified as illegal in at least a dozen states. Bucky’s fingers were kneading Sam’s nape and combing through his wiry curls while Sam’s lips traveled over his neck, mapping out the line of his throat. Bucky’s breath hitched and he shivered, covering the back of Sam’s hand with his own. Their fingers laced together, and Sam felt Bucky’s stuttering heartbeat while his own raced to catch up.

“Believe me when I tell you I want you. And that I care about you. C’mon. Come with me. Let’s get some water.” Sam tugged Bucky toward his tiny kitchenette, a waltzing stumble because neither of them wanted to let the other go. Bucky missed his first grab for the cabinet handle, making Sam chuckle and get it for him and select a glass printed with DC characters. Bucky took it from him and kissed him again before he filled it from the tap, drinking half of it before he tried to hand it to Sam.

“Nah. Drink all of it. You’re gonna need it. You’re a lightweight, Barnes.”

“No’m not. It’s just Fireball,” Bucky reminded him.

“Which is always the _worst_ idea.” Bucky hummed in agreement, snorting slightly into the glass. Both of them giggled as water dribbled down Bucky’s chin. 

“Can’t hold your drink.”

“S’all your fault.”

“Sure, it is. Blame me.” Bucky refilled the glass, and this time Sam took a couple of gulps and urged Bucky to go and get changed. 

“Don’t catch a chill.” Bucky’s skin was still sweaty, and Sam didn’t want him to get sick from being out in all that cold air while he was half-naked. And the sight of that bare chest was distracting him and waking everything up from below the waist. Sam followed Bucky to his bedroom and watched him from the edge of the doorway as he tugged open the drawer and found a soft, floppy gray cotton undershirt and pajama bottoms. Sam was surprised when Bucky tossed him a pair of long boxer shorts.

“Might as well hang out for a while,” Bucky reasoned. 

“You’re not gonna send me home?”

“Not unless you wanna leave?” Bucky’s voice held a cautious note.

“At this hour? In this neighborhood?” Sam teased. Bucky snorted at him again, eyes crinkling, and Sam was so gone on him. He wasn’t going anywhere.

They ended up sprawled on Bucky’s couch watching _Shameless_ reruns and just breathing each other in. Bucky lived in that strange, muzzy, warm place between drowsy near-sobriety and still sort of drunk. Sam’s hands were caressing him, lazily toying with his hair; the scent of his sweat mingled with his fading, metallic cologne, and he felt so solid and warm. Their hands wandered slowly over interesting places, and Bucky leaned down and tasted Sam’s collarbones, making him groan. Sam’s fingers curled into Bucky’s hair, and he tugged on it to get his attention and make him tilt his face up for a more thorough kiss. They wallowed in it, letting themselves get lost in it, and in each other, listening to each other breathe. Bucky came up for air for a moment. His lips were rosy and a little swollen from being kissed, and his eyes were dark with passion. 

“Are we gonna regret this in the morning?”

“Why would I regret this?” Sam pulled him down for another nipping, hungry kiss. “Spending time with my fiance?”

Bucky’s hips canted into Sam’s hardness. “Am I?”

“I like it, so I better put a ring on it. I told you. We aren’t doing this just when folks are watching. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Puddin.” 

Sam snickered, but he kissed him, and amusement gave way to building urgency, and suddenly Sam needed to touch all of him at once. Bucky’s body arched against him, propping himself on his elbows; cords of muscle tensed in his arms, beautifully scored with taut veins that Sam traced with his fingertips. Bucky’s skin had warmed back up, and Sam’s fingers drifted beneath his tank, lifting up the hem so they could skim over his sensitive back. Sam felt Bucky’s hands fumbling with his shirt, trying to prize it up and off, and Sam lifted up just enough to help him, and then they were both bare from the waist up, all tangled limbs and wandering hands. 

“You feel so good,” Sam rasped. His hand slid down to Bucky’s hip, molding to the curve of his ass and giving it a firm squeeze. Bucky groaned and rutted against him, making Sam’s dick strain between them for attention. They kissed, and Sam just wallowed in the satiny heat of Bucky’s mouth, wanting to feel it everywhere. _Everywhere._

“You’re gorgeous,” Bucky argued. “Look at you. God, Sam, _look at you_.”

Bucky stared down into Sam’s dark eyes, watching them dilate with arousal. “Gorgeous,” he repeated, taking in the details of his face, the elegant bone structure, the strong brows, and long, curling lashes and smooth, gleaming dark skin. 

“Look who’s talking, Barnes,” Sam husked. He bucked his hips up against him playfully, showing him how much he was affecting him, and Bucky ground himself against him in response, enjoying the friction where he craved it. Bucky grinned at him and kissed him, letting his mouth trail over Sam’s chin, nipping a path down his throat, and Sam sucked in a breath. His fingers tangled themselves in Bucky’s hair as he kissed his way down Sam’s chest, breathing over it. Bucky hummed in clear pleasure at Sam’s taste and scent, nuzzling him and teasing his dark, sensitive nipples into stiff peaks, lapping at each one in lazy spirals. “_Jesus._” 

“You taste so good,’ Bucky murmured against him. He peppered more hot, nipping kisses down Sam’s sternum, using his lips and teeth to count Sam’s ribs and map out his eight-pack, He settled himself in the nook between Sam’s thighs and nuzzled the edge of his waistband, tugging it with his teeth. Those blue eyes were filled with mischief and heat.

“Okay,” Sam teased. “You know what that look does to me, Barnes, you…”

“Oops… there go your pants.”

“They were yours, anyway. I guess that’s… fair… oh, God… okay, Okay.”

Bucky breathed over the bobbing, twitching length that was already canting toward his lips and kissed the plump, engorged head. “S’pretty,” Bucky teased. “You have a nice dick.” 

Sam’s body. God, it was a masterpiece laid out before Bucky. He shucked the boxers, drawing them down his thick, muscular thighs and springy calves, chucking them onto the floor. Sam’s dick was elegant and thick, smooth as silk when Bucky traced the vein along its underside with his fingertip. Sam was built like a goddamned Michelangelo statue, and he was sprawled back in repose, waiting. Watching Bucky with those smoldering eyes as Bucky leaned in and gave him another taste, lapping at the plump head again and catching the moisture that had pooled in the tip. Sam’s hips jerked in response.

“Baby,” he whimpered. Sam didn’t recognize that breathy, desperate voice as his own. Bucky drew him gently into his mouth, letting just the head skim over the flat of his tongue. His whole body wanted more of Bucky’s attention, but his dick had strong opinions about Bucky and what he was doing with his sweet, gorgeous mouth. Bucky dipped his head and swiveled his way down halfway, humming with pleasure and letting his husky voice vibrate through Sam’s flesh. Sam hissed, bucking up into it. Bucky combed his fingers through the crisp, coarse hair at Sam’s groin, lightly scratching with his blunt nails. He lingered there, giving Sam teasing bobs of his head, hot, shallow strokes designed to make him lose his damned mind. Bucky withdrew enough to tease the tiny, weeping slit, making it leak a little more, rewarding him with the musky flavor of salt and Sam’s arousal.

Sam’s thighs splayed open further to give him blessed room to move. Bucky took his sweet, sweet time and slowly took him down, sucking on him like he was the last popsicle in the box on a hot day. Bucky watched Sam through his lashes, tracking every gasp and jerk of his hips, seeing his nipples drawn up into hard little buds. The sight of Bucky’s face was undoing Sam just as much as the sensation of being wrapped in his silky, damp heat. His cheeks were hollowed out and that mouth was stretched around him in a loving grip. He was still humming and groaning with pleasure, one of the only other sounds other than the low volume of the television. 

Sam’s breathing grew choppy and uneven. He arched back against the sofa cushions and he white-knuckled the one under his head, eyes screwed shut as Bucky sped up his pace and took him deeper, almost to the root. “Bucky,” he cried, “_baby, please,_ God, Bucky, please, Bucky _please_, don’t stop, it’s good, so good, s’nice, feels so nicesonicesonicesonice, oh, baby..”

The praise spilling from Sam’s mouth was driving Bucky on. He wanted to please him and take him over the edge, but he never wanted to stop hearing that desperate tone, and that keening, and he loved the feel of Sam clinging to him, thighs locked around Bucky’s ribs.He drew it out for a while, taking him to the edge and then retreating, over and over again, feeling Sam shudder beneath him. Sam’s body was slicked with a sheen of sweat and his voice was hoarse from crying out. Bucky finally picked up the pace and gave Sam what he wanted, what they both wanted. Bucky felt Sam change, felt him stiffen and pulse right before he released down Bucky’s throat. His climax hit him in luscious waves, rattling through his body and making him stare up at Bucky in awe and disbelief.

They sprawled together, spent. Sam occasionally twitched, still sensitive, body still humming with pleasure.

“I’m sorry. Should have told you.”

“What?”

“That I love you. Shouldn’t have left you hanging, baby. I love you. I _love_ you so damned much.”

Bucky was limp, too happy to budge from where he was tucked against Sam’s chest. “I was waiting. I was _hoping_. Way to leave a guy in suspense, Sugar Bear.” Sam’s chest rumbled with his low laughter, and Bucky just basked in his heat, lulled into a pleasant stupor from Sam’s fingers stroking through his hair.

“Wasn’t exactly a mystery.”

“Sometimes, I just need you to make it obvious to me, pal.”

“Are you gonna be high maintenance?” Sam teased.

“I’m gonna be an absolute pain in your ass.”

“Good Lord, what have I gotten myself into?”

“A fine mess.”

Sam’s lips twisted into a smirk. Bucky shifted and settled himself against Sam. “Sounds like my favorite place to be.”

They clicked off the television and dozed together, woke up in a sweaty heap, and gradually made their way to Bucky’s room. They sprawled together on cool sheets with the fan turned on. Sam snuck back out to the kitchen for ice water to fortify them both, not wanting Bucky to wake up in rough shape, and once Sam returned to bed, Bucky resumed his earlier perusal of Sam’s body, unable to resist the siren call of Sam’s sculpted muscle and warm, gleaming skin. Sam eventually rolled Bucky onto his back and gave him back as well as he got, turning him into a whimpering, squirming, keening mess.

Sam slept like a log, his breath steaming a clammy spot against Bucky’s throat, and his arm fell asleep, but it was worth it to wake up to the sight of that face in soft repose, lit by the bluish glow of dawn.

*

Bucky’s phone blew up later that morning with messages from Steve and Clint. He huffed and shook his head as he shook coffee grounds into a floppy paper filter.

“What?” Sam asked from his perch on Bucky’s kitchen counter. He wore Bucky’s boxers again and his eyes were still drowsy, but he looked good enough to eat. Bucky was having second thoughts about waking up for the day when he hadn’t even made his bed yet, and the sheets were still warm, waiting for their return. But he heard Sam’s stomach growling and decided to do something with that last couple of eggs in the fridge. Sam swigged orange juice straight from Bucky’s half-full bottle.

“Just Rogers.”

“What’s he saying?”

“It’s Steve. What do you think?” Bucky showed Sam the phone screen, and text bubbles were appearing quickly, one after the other as they spoke. “He’s pouring it on. I’m gonna let him dangle a little bit.”

Sam gave him a chiding look. “C’mon, man. Don’t be like that.”

“What? Mad that he just told everybody our business?”

“C’mon, Sunshine.” Sam set down the bottle and hopped down from the counter. He wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist and snuggled against his back, distracting him from the task of scrambling the eggs. “Take it easy on him.”

“Shouldn’t you be even more pissed with him than I should?”

“No. We had the talk we needed to have. There’s no more need to tiptoe around the elephant in the room.” Sam dug his chin into the sensitive spot on Bucky’s shoulder, tickling him. Bucky playfully fought him, but he ground his backside back against Sam teasingly, just to mess with him. “Okay. Didn’t we just get out of bed?”

“Bed’s still there,” Bucky reminded him.

“You said you’d feed me.”

“I wasn’t big on the specifics…”

Sam made an obscene noise and nuzzled the side of his throat. Bucky yelped when Sam nipped him, tickling his ribs and tightening his arms around him when Bucky tried to get away, but then he groaned with need when Sam lapped at that same spot with his satiny tongue. Bucky’s eyes shuttered, and he let out a low, breathy sound that went straight to Sam’s crotch.

“I’m pissed at Rogers, too. Don’t get me wrong. Nobody needed to know all that, but I’m glad we - oh, shit, take that off the heat!” The eggs began to scorch a little, and Bucky laughed as he yanked the pan off the burner and turned off the heat. “Hey. Listen. We can do this again.”

“I’m gonna do _you_ once you finish eating, Wilson.”

“That’s… okay. That’s fine. But that’s not what I meant.” Sam kissed his shoulder again. “I mean the other parts. The stag party. The proposal. And we can register somewhere nicer than Target. I just… I wanna make this special.”

“Awwwww…” 

“I mean it.”

“I can’t handle another round of Fireball.”

“How about a weekend in Vail? We can rent a nice cabin and do it up right.”

Bucky felt a happy little flutter in his stomach. “That. That sounds nice.”

“Mmmm. Does, doesn’t it?”

And the two of them grew increasingly distracted, kissing and groping until Bucky’s phone _rang_ this time, and he growled in mock outrage.

“I’m gonna kill ‘im. It was just getting good…” Bucky swiped right on the call, and Sam sighed, giving Bucky’s butt a little pat. He dished up the eggs onto two plates and popped two slices of bread into the toaster. Bucky enjoyed the view while Sam bent and ducked into the fridge for some jam. “What do you want, Rogers?”

“Buck. Please, please forgive me. I was _such_ an asshole. I suck, I know I suck, but I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t meant to wave all of your business out there in front of everybody, or say that shit that I said about Clint, and I had too much to drink, and-”

“Buddy. You ain’t kiddin’. You were on a roll.”

Steve’s voice was higher pitched than usual with anxiety. “I didn’t mean that. I shouldn’t have done that. I never meant to hurt you, and I know I hurt you, and I get it if you and Sam both hate me, but _please_ don’t hate me! I should have stayed in my lane-”

“You should have. You didn’t. But… thing is, Sam and I kinda talked about some things.”

“You talked? And?”

Bucky grinned at Sam and handed him the phone.

“I’m marrying your buddy despite the fact that he doesn’t like his eggs overeasy, even though that’s the only proper way to eat them.’

“Oh, my GOD!” Steve crowed. “Wilson… what time is it? You- wait. It’s _early_” You stayed over! And, wait - marrying my buddy! You’re MARRYING BUCKY?!”

“Mm-hmmmm,” Sam informed him smugly, nodding for Bucky’s benefit.

“Married, married, right? No playing around?”

“Serious as a heart attack. Barnes, here. Talk to your boy.”

When Bucky took back the phone, he heard ear-splitting yelling and freaking out, and Clint in the background muttering _What the fuck?_, and Bucky couldn’t help snickering.

“Oh, my God! OH, my GOD! Bucky! You sonofagun! You two are getting MARRIED!?!”

“Yeah. We kinda are, now.” Bucky gave Sam a lopsided smile, and Sam leaned in and kissed him softly.

“I heard that. You two are getting mushy. Geez… wow. Okay.” Steve chuckled, and he said “They’re getting married for real.” obviously for Clint’s benefit.

Winter came padding out into the kitchen, mewing for her breakfast. She slithered against Sam’s bare ankles, and Sam scooped her up into his arms for a brief cuddle and a warning.

“No poking holes in me with those claws, y’hear me? I know you dig ‘em in when you’re happy.”

“Her food’s in the left cupboard,” Bucky told him. He went back to his chat with Steve. “Hey. No hard feelings. I mean, I could have done without the part where you let the cat out of the bag. But everything’s fine. More than fine. Wilson and I had a chance to talk.”

Steve snorted. “Bet you did more than talk…”

Bucky blushed and smirked. Sam caught that look and waggled his eyebrows at him as he dumped dry food into Winter’s dish and refilled her water bowl.

They rang off, and Sam and Bucky lazed away the rest of the day in Bucky’s apartment, watching movies, fiddling with their social media, ordering takeout, and making love on every piece of furniture they landed on, letting the rest of their phone calls go to voice mail.

*

On Bucky’s next work day, he stowed his stuff in his tiny locker and began to make a pot of strong coffee. He was wrapped up in his task and yelped at the sudden sensation of something wispy brushing against the back of his neck. He spun on Steve, who grinned up at him and had Bucky’s tacky feather boa draped around his bony shoulders and the toy crown on his head.

“Oh, God… I need to take a blackmail picture.”

“Pfffffft… it’s your stuff. Won’t bother me, anyway. Tag me on Instagram.”

“You mean that?”

“Hell, no!”

Steve removed both items and crammed them both into a plastic bag, which he then shoved at Bucky. “So. We good?”

“Course we’re good.”

Steve tackled-hugged him, crushing a low “oof!” from Bucky’s chest. But he hugged him back, giving him a little shake.

“I was worried about you. I didn’t want you to get hurt. I was about to kick Wilson’s ass if he was just playing around with you. I know how you feel about him.”

“Yeah? Well, it turns out he feels like that about me, too. I’m pretty stoked about it.” Bucky released him with a little shove.

“God, look at you. That’s sickening. You’re blushing and everything!”

“Yeah? So?” But Bucky noticed Steve smirking about something. He looked like he was bursting, for some reason. “Hey. Something’s up.”

“Maybe.”

Steve folded his arms, and the gesture made Bucky notice something sparkling on his left hand. “Wait. What’s _THAT?!”_

“Nothing,” Steve insisted, but Bucky pried his hand loose from the crook of his arm to get a better look at the ring.

“That looks like a promise ring, you asshole!”

Steve grinned and nodded. He reached up beneath his glasses to swipe at his eyes, already sniffling, and Bucky gave him a little shove, right before he hugged him again.

“He proposed. Clint popped the question, and he lit candles and made me my favorite dinner and had wine and flowers… it was just nice. It was so nice. That big jerk. I love him so much. Clint’s never one for romance, y’know? But he made it so damned perfect.”

Bucky noticed that there was a tiny arrow engraved down the length of the band. Clint loved archery, so Bucky knew he had a lot of work put into this ring. The ring was inlaid with tiny rubies, Steve’s birthstone.

“That’s nice.”

“He wants Lucky to be the ringbearer.”

“Will Lucky even go for that?”

“I don’t know. Clint just wants the dog in the wedding. And I get it. He’s our fur baby, I couldn’t see getting married without him. It’d be a sacrilege.” And Steve was glowing just talking about it, ten kinds of sappy, and Bucky wondered if he sounded like that when he talked about Sam.

*

Steve and Bucky argued about that very thing the following week, when Steve caught him staring down at the ring on his hand, dreamy and rapt. The ring was set with aquamarines that matched his eyes, his birthstone, and Sam got down on his knee again right before they went out to dinner. Sam grinned up at him and began to sing to him, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” until Bucky begged him to stop, but he was laughing and crying a little, and he never wanted to stop kissing Sam Wilson. 

Steve and Bucky argued about it again during tuxedo fittings. And in Vail at the cabin over hot buttered rum as they all thawed from a day up on the slopes, ensconced on their respective fiance’s laps and bundled in blankets. And during a cake tasting at the bakery Sam picked out; the lemon chiffon cake with raspberry filling and a delicate buttercream made Steve decide he and Clint needed to use that bakery, too. 

Sam and Bucky wrote their own vows. They wed on a perfect September day. Stevie Wonder drifted out of the speakers at the reception for their first dance as a married - truly married! - couple.

“Clint says they’re shooting for some time before Christmas.”

“Why push it so close to the holiday?”

“He said it’ll guarantee that their families will be in town that week, anyway.”

“That works, I guess.”

Bucky grinned mischievously. “Can I grab your ass now, Sugar Bear?”

“Not in front of my mama, Barnes, or so help me, I will _ end_ you.” Sam gave him a look of warning, but Bucky could see the laughter dancing in his eyes.

“By the way, Sammy… I need a date for the wedding. I figure you could do me a solid. Just for appearance’s sake. We could do each other a favor-”

“HEY!” Sam brandished his finger under Bucky’s chin, about to read him the riot act, but Bucky snickered and batted it away, kissing him before Sam took umbrage.

“M’kidding, Sugar Bear. Just kidding.”

“Hey. It’s all good. You’re _stuck_ with me, now, Sunshine Bear.”

“I’ll drive you crazy,” Bucky reminded him.

“It’s the only place I wanna be. Take the wheel.”

\--FIN.


End file.
